May 2025 in review

May 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 May 5, 2025 and the lowest on May 1, 2025; 11 answers doubled a letter and 7 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

The hardest and easiest answers

Highest estimated difficulty

SHUSH 4 pts · May 5, 2025 · #1,416

SHUSH repeats H and S. 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

ADEPT 0 pts · May 1, 2025 · #1,412

ADEPT 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 May 1, 2025 to 4 on May 5, 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. May's 31 answers averaged 1.5 points on the estimated word-difficulty scale against 1.6 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

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.

7 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: May 4 (#1,415) doubled T; May 5 (#1,416) doubled H and S; May 13 (#1,424) doubled A; May 14 (#1,425) doubled O; May 15 (#1,426) doubled E; May 16 (#1,427) doubled F; May 18 (#1,429) doubled I; May 21 (#1,432) doubled A; May 22 (#1,433) doubled O; May 24 (#1,435) doubled E; May 30 (#1,441) doubled I.

Uncommon-letter days: May 2 (#1,413) used W; May 11 (#1,422) used W; May 13 (#1,424) used W; May 17 (#1,428) used W; May 18 (#1,429) used V; May 23 (#1,434) used K; May 29 (#1,440) 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
May 31, 2025 Saturday #1,442 → HABIT Easy
May 30, 2025 Friday #1,441 → IDIOM Tricky
May 29, 2025 Thursday #1,440 → QUASH Tricky
May 28, 2025 Wednesday #1,439 → POLAR Easy
May 27, 2025 Tuesday #1,438 → SPORT Moderate
May 26, 2025 Monday #1,437 → DRONE Easy
May 25, 2025 Sunday #1,436 → GRIFT Hard
May 24, 2025 Saturday #1,435 → SUEDE Moderate
May 23, 2025 Friday #1,434 → SHUCK Hard
May 22, 2025 Thursday #1,433 → FOLIO Moderate
May 21, 2025 Wednesday #1,432 → ALARM Moderate
May 20, 2025 Tuesday #1,431 → BORNE Easy
May 19, 2025 Monday #1,430 → PITCH Moderate
May 18, 2025 Sunday #1,429 → LIVID Tricky
May 17, 2025 Saturday #1,428 → GROWN Tricky
May 16, 2025 Friday #1,427 → FIFTH Tricky
May 15, 2025 Thursday #1,426 → EAGER Moderate
May 14, 2025 Wednesday #1,425 → BONGO Tricky
May 13, 2025 Tuesday #1,424 → AWARE Tricky
May 12, 2025 Monday #1,423 → BICEP Tricky
May 11, 2025 Sunday #1,422 → DOWEL Hard
May 10, 2025 Saturday #1,421 → YEAST Easy
May 9, 2025 Friday #1,420 → TRIPE Tricky
May 8, 2025 Thursday #1,419 → BALMY Tricky
May 7, 2025 Wednesday #1,418 → MACHO Easy
May 6, 2025 Tuesday #1,417 → SUITE Easy
May 5, 2025 Monday #1,416 → SHUSH Hard
May 4, 2025 Sunday #1,415 → TROUT Moderate
May 3, 2025 Saturday #1,414 → PATSY Moderate
May 2, 2025 Friday #1,413 → WHOSE Moderate
May 1, 2025 Thursday #1,412 → ADEPT 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 (5)
E Most common end (7)
SHUSH 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 9
  • Tricky 10
  • Hard 4

From the guides

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