October 2025 in review

October 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 Oct 27, 2025 and the lowest on Oct 1, 2025; 12 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

FETID 3.5 pts · Oct 27, 2025 · #1,591

FETID appears less than once per million words in the corpus-based frequency data, so familiarity alone sets a Hard floor. Its five distinct letters include at least two vowels and none of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

Lowest estimated difficulty

SPOIL 0 pts · Oct 1, 2025 · #1,565

SPOIL 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 1, 2025 to 3.5 on Oct 27, 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. October's 31 answers averaged 1.4 points on the estimated word-difficulty scale against 1.8 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

12 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: Oct 3 (#1,567) doubled S; Oct 7 (#1,571) doubled N; Oct 8 (#1,572) doubled N; Oct 10 (#1,574) doubled E; Oct 15 (#1,579) doubled O; Oct 16 (#1,580) doubled T; Oct 17 (#1,581) doubled S; Oct 22 (#1,586) doubled T; Oct 23 (#1,587) doubled L; Oct 25 (#1,589) doubled G; Oct 26 (#1,590) doubled P; Oct 28 (#1,592) doubled L.

Uncommon-letter days: Oct 2 (#1,566) used W; Oct 10 (#1,574) used V; Oct 11 (#1,575) used K; Oct 12 (#1,576) used W; Oct 18 (#1,582) used V; Oct 21 (#1,585) used X.

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, 2025 Friday #1,595 → ABHOR Tricky
Oct 30, 2025 Thursday #1,594 → LATHE Tricky
Oct 29, 2025 Wednesday #1,593 → GLARE Easy
Oct 28, 2025 Tuesday #1,592 → HOLLY Tricky
Oct 27, 2025 Monday #1,591 → FETID Hard
Oct 26, 2025 Sunday #1,590 → PLUMP Tricky
Oct 25, 2025 Saturday #1,589 → GAUGE Moderate
Oct 24, 2025 Friday #1,588 → TUBER Tricky
Oct 23, 2025 Thursday #1,587 → DRILL Tricky
Oct 22, 2025 Wednesday #1,586 → STUNT Tricky
Oct 21, 2025 Tuesday #1,585 → DETOX Moderate
Oct 20, 2025 Monday #1,584 → LIMBO Easy
Oct 19, 2025 Sunday #1,583 → IDEAL Easy
Oct 18, 2025 Saturday #1,582 → HAVEN Moderate
Oct 17, 2025 Friday #1,581 → GROSS Tricky
Oct 16, 2025 Thursday #1,580 → CATTY Tricky
Oct 15, 2025 Wednesday #1,579 → SPOOF Moderate
Oct 14, 2025 Tuesday #1,578 → FORUM Easy
Oct 13, 2025 Monday #1,577 → BEARD Easy
Oct 12, 2025 Sunday #1,576 → WOUND Moderate
Oct 11, 2025 Saturday #1,575 → STACK Tricky
Oct 10, 2025 Friday #1,574 → LEVER Tricky
Oct 9, 2025 Thursday #1,573 → HARDY Moderate
Oct 8, 2025 Wednesday #1,572 → ANNOY Moderate
Oct 7, 2025 Tuesday #1,571 → NYLON Tricky
Oct 6, 2025 Monday #1,570 → AMUSE Easy
Oct 5, 2025 Sunday #1,569 → PLANE Easy
Oct 4, 2025 Saturday #1,568 → RELAY Easy
Oct 3, 2025 Friday #1,567 → SPASM Tricky
Oct 2, 2025 Thursday #1,566 → WIDTH Tricky
Oct 1, 2025 Wednesday #1,565 → SPOIL 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 (5)
FETID 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 7
  • Tricky 14
  • Hard 1

From the guides

Keep solving and playing