July 2024 in review

July 2024 is complete, with 31 puzzles and every date recorded. On the site's word-property scale it was an ordinary month. The highest estimated difficulty occurred on Jul 31, 2024 and the lowest on Jul 4, 2024; 9 answers doubled a letter and 8 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

The hardest and easiest answers

Highest estimated difficulty

PENNE 3.5 pts · Jul 31, 2024 · #1,138

PENNE 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

DEBUT 0 pts · Jul 4, 2024 · #1,111

DEBUT 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 Jul 4, 2024 to 3.5 on Jul 31, 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. July's 31 answers averaged 1.4 points on the estimated word-difficulty scale against 1.2 across the trailing six months, and a gap of 0.2 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

9 of 31 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.

8 of 31 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: Jul 1 (#1,108) doubled A; Jul 3 (#1,110) doubled H; Jul 6 (#1,113) doubled F; Jul 7 (#1,114) doubled N; Jul 12 (#1,119) doubled F; Jul 15 (#1,122) doubled O; Jul 19 (#1,126) doubled E and R; Jul 26 (#1,133) doubled A; Jul 31 (#1,138) doubled E and N.

Uncommon-letter days: Jul 12 (#1,119) used J; Jul 14 (#1,121) used V; Jul 15 (#1,122) used W; Jul 17 (#1,124) used Q; Jul 21 (#1,128) used K; Jul 26 (#1,133) used W; Jul 27 (#1,134) used J; Jul 28 (#1,135) used K.

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
Jul 31, 2024 Wednesday #1,138 → PENNE Hard
Jul 30, 2024 Tuesday #1,137 → FERAL Easy
Jul 29, 2024 Monday #1,136 → SUPER Easy
Jul 28, 2024 Sunday #1,135 → SMOCK Tricky
Jul 27, 2024 Saturday #1,134 → JUICE Moderate
Jul 26, 2024 Friday #1,133 → AWASH Tricky
Jul 25, 2024 Thursday #1,132 → PORCH Moderate
Jul 24, 2024 Wednesday #1,131 → FORTE Easy
Jul 23, 2024 Tuesday #1,130 → PRONG Tricky
Jul 22, 2024 Monday #1,129 → CADET Easy
Jul 21, 2024 Sunday #1,128 → SPECK Tricky
Jul 20, 2024 Saturday #1,127 → SHAFT Moderate
Jul 19, 2024 Friday #1,126 → REFER Tricky
Jul 18, 2024 Thursday #1,125 → NERDY Moderate
Jul 17, 2024 Wednesday #1,124 → QUITE Moderate
Jul 16, 2024 Tuesday #1,123 → DECOY Easy
Jul 15, 2024 Monday #1,122 → SWOON Tricky
Jul 14, 2024 Sunday #1,121 → VIDEO Moderate
Jul 13, 2024 Saturday #1,120 → ENACT Easy
Jul 12, 2024 Friday #1,119 → JIFFY Hard
Jul 11, 2024 Thursday #1,118 → CAMEO Easy
Jul 10, 2024 Wednesday #1,117 → GAUNT Tricky
Jul 9, 2024 Tuesday #1,116 → BLARE Hard
Jul 8, 2024 Monday #1,115 → SHAPE Easy
Jul 7, 2024 Sunday #1,114 → CANON Moderate
Jul 6, 2024 Saturday #1,113 → SCOFF Tricky
Jul 5, 2024 Friday #1,112 → CRUSH Moderate
Jul 4, 2024 Thursday #1,111 → DEBUT Easy
Jul 3, 2024 Wednesday #1,110 → THIGH Tricky
Jul 2, 2024 Tuesday #1,109 → INLAY Tricky
Jul 1, 2024 Monday #1,108 → ADAGE Tricky

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

31 Answers
S Most common start (7)
E Most common end (7)
PENNE 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 9
  • Moderate 8
  • Tricky 11
  • Hard 3

From the guides

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