February 2024 in review

February 2024 is complete, with 29 puzzles and every date recorded. On the site's word-property scale it was an ordinary month. The highest estimated difficulty occurred on Feb 13, 2024 and the lowest on Feb 3, 2024; 10 answers doubled a letter and 6 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

The hardest and easiest answers

Highest estimated difficulty

SCRAM 3.5 pts · Feb 13, 2024 · #969

SCRAM appears less than once per million words in the corpus-based frequency data, so familiarity alone sets a Hard floor. Its letters add points too, but corpus frequency sets the minimum rating.

Lowest estimated difficulty

MICRO 0 pts · Feb 3, 2024 · #959

MICRO has five distinct letters, 2 vowels and no uncommon letters. Common first guesses therefore test many of its letters.

The spread ran from 0 points on Feb 3, 2024 to 3.5 on Feb 13, 2024. Both numbers describe single words, not a sequence. A hard day and an easy one can occur in the same week, so the trend line below compares whole months rather than individual days.

The difficulty trend

An ordinary month. February's 29 answers averaged 1.2 points on the estimated word-difficulty scale against 1.2 across the trailing six months, and a gap of less than 0.1 points sits inside the normal month-to-month spread of about ±0.3. At roughly thirty answers a month that is sampling noise, not a change in how answers were chosen. The difference does not support changing openers or strategy. The scale combines general-English corpus frequency with repeats, uncommon letters and missing vowels. It measures word properties, not player results.

Letters and patterns

10 of 29 answers doubled a letter, in line with the long-run archive rate of about 31%. This matches the usual rate. Test a repeat when the board stalls.

6 of 29 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W, in line with the long-run archive rate of about 28%. Standard openers test these letters less often, so the difficulty scale adds a penalty for each one.

No day reused an earlier answer: every puzzle this month was a first appearance in the site's recorded history. Repeats do happen, so a word having been a solution before is still no reason to drop it from your guesses.

Double-letter days: Feb 4 (#960) doubled E; Feb 5 (#961) doubled E; Feb 6 (#962) doubled H; Feb 9 (#965) doubled F; Feb 11 (#967) doubled E; Feb 12 (#968) doubled A; Feb 16 (#972) doubled S; Feb 23 (#979) doubled A; Feb 24 (#980) doubled P; Feb 27 (#983) doubled E and S.

Uncommon-letter days: Feb 1 (#957) used V; Feb 4 (#960) used V; Feb 6 (#962) used W; Feb 11 (#967) used V; Feb 22 (#978) used V; Feb 28 (#984) used V.

How players fared

No day from this month has reached the Observatory's minimum public sample of 10 opt-in games, so no crowd numbers appear. The gate is deliberate: below it, a handful of results could stand in for a crowd and misrepresent a day.

Answer words are shown only for completed puzzles. Open a puzzle for its definition, difficulty and solver replay.

DateDayPuzzleAnswerWord difficulty
Feb 29, 2024 Thursday #985 → IMAGE Easy
Feb 28, 2024 Wednesday #984 → DEVIL Moderate
Feb 27, 2024 Tuesday #983 → SENSE Tricky
Feb 26, 2024 Monday #982 → OFTEN Easy
Feb 25, 2024 Sunday #981 → SMITH Moderate
Feb 24, 2024 Saturday #980 → PIPER Moderate
Feb 23, 2024 Friday #979 → APART Moderate
Feb 22, 2024 Thursday #978 → HEAVY Moderate
Feb 21, 2024 Wednesday #977 → BUILD Easy
Feb 20, 2024 Tuesday #976 → MATCH Moderate
Feb 19, 2024 Monday #975 → PRICE Easy
Feb 18, 2024 Sunday #974 → RIDGE Easy
Feb 17, 2024 Saturday #973 → PSALM Moderate
Feb 16, 2024 Friday #972 → STASH Tricky
Feb 15, 2024 Thursday #971 → ASCOT Easy
Feb 14, 2024 Wednesday #970 → TALON Tricky
Feb 13, 2024 Tuesday #969 → SCRAM Hard
Feb 12, 2024 Monday #968 → PASTA Moderate
Feb 11, 2024 Sunday #967 → NEVER Tricky
Feb 10, 2024 Saturday #966 → FRIED Easy
Feb 9, 2024 Friday #965 → STIFF Tricky
Feb 8, 2024 Thursday #964 → PLACE Easy
Feb 7, 2024 Wednesday #963 → AFTER Easy
Feb 6, 2024 Tuesday #962 → WHICH Hard
Feb 5, 2024 Monday #961 → REPEL Moderate
Feb 4, 2024 Sunday #960 → VERGE Tricky
Feb 3, 2024 Saturday #959 → MICRO Easy
Feb 2, 2024 Friday #958 → CLEFT Tricky
Feb 1, 2024 Thursday #957 → ALIVE Moderate

On this day in Wordle

Past answers published on September 7 in earlier years. Every puzzle listed here is complete, so this section does not spoil a live game.

  1. 1 year ago
    Easy

    Nothing unusual appears in the letters: all five are distinct and familiar. Ordinary letter coverage works well on words like this.

    Puzzle #1,541 → Word page →

  2. 2 years ago
    Moderate

    Nothing unusual appears in the letters: all five are distinct and familiar. Ordinary letter coverage works well on words like this.

    Puzzle #1,176 → Word page →

  3. 3 years ago
    Hard

    The doubled L raises the difficulty. Once a letter shows up yellow or green, few players try it a second time unprompted.

    Puzzle #810 → Word page →

The Easy-to-Brutal badge combines general-English corpus frequency with repeats, uncommon letters and vowel count. It estimates word difficulty, not player results. Dates come from the site's recorded answer history.

Archive totals

29 Answers
S Most common start (5)
E Most common end (7)
SCRAM Highest estimated difficulty

Estimated word difficulty combines wordfreq corpus frequency with repeats, uncommon letters and vowel count. It measures word properties, not player results. Compare solver difficulty →

  • Easy 10
  • Moderate 10
  • Tricky 7
  • Hard 2

From the guides

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