October 2024 in review

October 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 Oct 15, 2024 and the lowest on Oct 5, 2024; 10 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

CORER 5 pts · Oct 15, 2024 · #1,214

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

Lowest estimated difficulty

MINER 0 pts · Oct 5, 2024 · #1,204

MINER 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 Oct 5, 2024 to 5 on Oct 15, 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. October's 31 answers averaged 1.4 points on the estimated word-difficulty scale against 1.3 across the trailing six months, and a gap of 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 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: Oct 1 (#1,200) doubled M; Oct 2 (#1,201) doubled L; Oct 4 (#1,203) doubled T; Oct 9 (#1,208) doubled M; Oct 15 (#1,214) doubled R; Oct 18 (#1,217) doubled T; Oct 21 (#1,220) doubled O; Oct 23 (#1,222) doubled O; Oct 24 (#1,223) doubled S; Oct 30 (#1,229) doubled E.

Uncommon-letter days: Oct 3 (#1,202) used W; Oct 8 (#1,207) used J; Oct 10 (#1,209) used V; Oct 17 (#1,216) used V; Oct 25 (#1,224) used W; Oct 26 (#1,225) used K and W; Oct 28 (#1,227) used W; Oct 31 (#1,230) used W.

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
Oct 31, 2024 Thursday #1,230 → WEIRD Moderate
Oct 30, 2024 Wednesday #1,229 → EASEL Tricky
Oct 29, 2024 Tuesday #1,228 → TUNIC Easy
Oct 28, 2024 Monday #1,227 → BAWDY Tricky
Oct 27, 2024 Sunday #1,226 → SANDY Used 2 times Moderate
Oct 26, 2024 Saturday #1,225 → WREAK Tricky
Oct 25, 2024 Friday #1,224 → FROWN Tricky
Oct 24, 2024 Thursday #1,223 → BOSSY Tricky
Oct 23, 2024 Wednesday #1,222 → GOOFY Moderate
Oct 22, 2024 Tuesday #1,221 → SHOUT Easy
Oct 21, 2024 Monday #1,220 → SPOON Moderate
Oct 20, 2024 Sunday #1,219 → DICEY Tricky
Oct 19, 2024 Saturday #1,218 → FIBER Easy
Oct 18, 2024 Friday #1,217 → STINT Tricky
Oct 17, 2024 Thursday #1,216 → HALVE Tricky
Oct 16, 2024 Wednesday #1,215 → GRANT Moderate
Oct 15, 2024 Tuesday #1,214 → CORER Brutal
Oct 14, 2024 Monday #1,213 → GAMUT Tricky
Oct 13, 2024 Sunday #1,212 → PRONE Easy
Oct 12, 2024 Saturday #1,211 → STAIN Easy
Oct 11, 2024 Friday #1,210 → GUSTY Tricky
Oct 10, 2024 Thursday #1,209 → CARVE Moderate
Oct 9, 2024 Wednesday #1,208 → MOMMY Hard
Oct 8, 2024 Tuesday #1,207 → JOINT Moderate
Oct 7, 2024 Monday #1,206 → FLOUR Easy
Oct 6, 2024 Sunday #1,205 → LAGER Easy
Oct 5, 2024 Saturday #1,204 → MINER Easy
Oct 4, 2024 Friday #1,203 → TITLE Moderate
Oct 3, 2024 Thursday #1,202 → WAGON Moderate
Oct 2, 2024 Wednesday #1,201 → SHELL Tricky
Oct 1, 2024 Tuesday #1,200 → MODEM 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 (6)
Y Most common end (7)
CORER 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 8
  • Moderate 10
  • Tricky 11
  • Hard 1
  • Brutal 1

From the guides

Keep solving and playing