December 2025 in review

December 2025 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 Dec 19, 2025 and the lowest on Dec 1, 2025; 11 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

MYRRH 4.5 pts · Dec 19, 2025 · #1,644

MYRRH contains none of A, E, I, O or U, the largest single letter penalty on the scale. A vowel-heavy opener can therefore spend several positions on absent letters.

Lowest estimated difficulty

LEACH 0 pts · Dec 1, 2025 · #1,626

LEACH 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 Dec 1, 2025 to 4.5 on Dec 19, 2025. 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. December's 31 answers averaged 1.4 points on the estimated word-difficulty scale against 1.7 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

11 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.

6 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: Dec 2 (#1,627) doubled C; Dec 10 (#1,635) doubled E; Dec 11 (#1,636) doubled S; Dec 15 (#1,640) doubled D; Dec 16 (#1,641) doubled E; Dec 17 (#1,642) doubled S; Dec 19 (#1,644) doubled R; Dec 22 (#1,647) doubled C; Dec 24 (#1,649) doubled O; Dec 26 (#1,651) doubled E; Dec 28 (#1,653) doubled B.

Uncommon-letter days: Dec 6 (#1,631) used W; Dec 8 (#1,633) used V; Dec 12 (#1,637) used K; Dec 14 (#1,639) used W; Dec 20 (#1,645) used W; Dec 21 (#1,646) used Q.

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
Dec 31, 2025 Wednesday #1,656 → SIREN Easy
Dec 30, 2025 Tuesday #1,655 → DECOR Easy
Dec 29, 2025 Monday #1,654 → FRUIT Easy
Dec 28, 2025 Sunday #1,653 → ABBOT Moderate
Dec 27, 2025 Saturday #1,652 → BATCH Moderate
Dec 26, 2025 Friday #1,651 → SPEED Moderate
Dec 25, 2025 Thursday #1,650 → PRISM Moderate
Dec 24, 2025 Wednesday #1,649 → SPOOL Tricky
Dec 23, 2025 Tuesday #1,648 → GLINT Tricky
Dec 22, 2025 Monday #1,647 → CONCH Tricky
Dec 21, 2025 Sunday #1,646 → QUILT Moderate
Dec 20, 2025 Saturday #1,645 → WHITE Moderate
Dec 19, 2025 Friday #1,644 → MYRRH Hard
Dec 18, 2025 Thursday #1,643 → RUGBY Moderate
Dec 17, 2025 Wednesday #1,642 → GRASS Tricky
Dec 16, 2025 Tuesday #1,641 → SEGUE Tricky
Dec 15, 2025 Monday #1,640 → DODGY Tricky
Dec 14, 2025 Sunday #1,639 → SWING Tricky
Dec 13, 2025 Saturday #1,638 → MISER Tricky
Dec 12, 2025 Friday #1,637 → TRUCK Tricky
Dec 11, 2025 Thursday #1,636 → GUESS Moderate
Dec 10, 2025 Wednesday #1,635 → ERASE Moderate
Dec 9, 2025 Tuesday #1,634 → SNIDE Tricky
Dec 8, 2025 Monday #1,633 → GRAVY Tricky
Dec 7, 2025 Sunday #1,632 → FLUTE Easy
Dec 6, 2025 Saturday #1,631 → WAIST Moderate
Dec 5, 2025 Friday #1,630 → AMONG Easy
Dec 4, 2025 Thursday #1,629 → TULIP Easy
Dec 3, 2025 Wednesday #1,628 → HASTE Easy
Dec 2, 2025 Tuesday #1,627 → CACTI Tricky
Dec 1, 2025 Monday #1,626 → LEACH Easy

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)
E Most common end (6)
MYRRH 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 12
  • Hard 1

From the guides

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