March 2024 in review

March 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 Mar 25, 2024 and the lowest on Mar 2, 2024; 7 answers doubled a letter and 5 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

The hardest and easiest answers

Highest estimated difficulty

SALLY 2.5 pts · Mar 25, 2024 · #1,010

SALLY repeats L. A no-repeat strategy is slow to test the second copy, and the scale weighs each duplicate more heavily than any other single feature.

Lowest estimated difficulty

URBAN 0 pts · Mar 2, 2024 · #987

URBAN 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 Mar 2, 2024 to 2.5 on Mar 25, 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. March's 31 answers averaged 0.9 points on the estimated word-difficulty scale against 1.1 across the trailing six months, and a gap of 0.3 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

7 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.

5 of 31 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W, below 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: Mar 3 (#988) doubled T; Mar 5 (#990) doubled H; Mar 9 (#994) doubled E; Mar 12 (#997) doubled E; Mar 13 (#998) doubled L; Mar 25 (#1,010) doubled L; Mar 31 (#1,016) doubled O.

Uncommon-letter days: Mar 11 (#996) used K; Mar 12 (#997) used V; Mar 16 (#1,001) used X; Mar 24 (#1,009) used W; Mar 28 (#1,013) 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
Mar 31, 2024 Sunday #1,016 → TABOO Moderate
Mar 30, 2024 Saturday #1,015 → FORCE Easy
Mar 29, 2024 Friday #1,014 → REALM Easy
Mar 28, 2024 Thursday #1,013 → SPEAK Moderate
Mar 27, 2024 Wednesday #1,012 → STUNG Moderate
Mar 26, 2024 Tuesday #1,011 → MAYOR Easy
Mar 25, 2024 Monday #1,010 → SALLY Tricky
Mar 24, 2024 Sunday #1,009 → TOWEL Moderate
Mar 23, 2024 Saturday #1,008 → RISEN Easy
Mar 22, 2024 Friday #1,007 → DECAY Easy
Mar 21, 2024 Thursday #1,006 → SHADE Easy
Mar 20, 2024 Wednesday #1,005 → LINGO Easy
Mar 19, 2024 Tuesday #1,004 → ABIDE Easy
Mar 18, 2024 Monday #1,003 → SPELT Moderate
Mar 17, 2024 Sunday #1,002 → SNORT Moderate
Mar 16, 2024 Saturday #1,001 → TOXIN Moderate
Mar 15, 2024 Friday #1,000 → ERUPT Tricky
Mar 14, 2024 Thursday #999 → SINCE Easy
Mar 13, 2024 Wednesday #998 → LOCAL Moderate
Mar 12, 2024 Tuesday #997 → HEAVE Tricky
Mar 11, 2024 Monday #996 → PESKY Tricky
Mar 10, 2024 Sunday #995 → GRASP Moderate
Mar 9, 2024 Saturday #994 → CHEER Moderate
Mar 8, 2024 Friday #993 → EARLY Easy
Mar 7, 2024 Thursday #992 → CLONE Easy
Mar 6, 2024 Wednesday #991 → TEARY Tricky
Mar 5, 2024 Tuesday #990 → HUNCH Tricky
Mar 4, 2024 Monday #989 → FLAME Easy
Mar 3, 2024 Sunday #988 → STATE Moderate
Mar 2, 2024 Saturday #987 → URBAN Easy
Mar 1, 2024 Friday #986 → FORTY 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

31 Answers
S Most common start (8)
E Most common end (8)
SALLY 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 13
  • Moderate 12
  • Tricky 6

From the guides

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