February 2026 in review

February 2026 is complete, with 28 puzzles and every date recorded. On the site's word-property scale it was an ordinary month. The highest estimated difficulty occurred on Feb 27, 2026 and the lowest on Feb 2, 2026; 12 answers doubled a letter and 10 answers used at least one of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

The hardest and easiest answers

Highest estimated difficulty

DIZZY 4.5 pts · Feb 27, 2026 · #1,714

DIZZY doubles Z, an uncommon letter. The scale's two heaviest penalties land on one letter because ordinary openers rarely probe Z at all, let alone twice.

Lowest estimated difficulty

CIGAR 0 pts · Feb 2, 2026 · #1,689

CIGAR 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 Feb 2, 2026 to 4.5 on Feb 27, 2026. 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. February's 28 answers averaged 1.7 points on the estimated word-difficulty scale against 1.5 across the trailing six months, and a gap of 0.2 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 28 answers doubled a letter, above the long-run archive rate of about 31%. That is the pattern that punishes never-repeat guessing: on a stalled board, testing a doubled letter should have come earlier than usual.

10 of 28 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.

3 days reused an earlier answer. Repeats are ordinary in the archive, so do not discard a guess only because it has already been a solution.

Double-letter days: Feb 5 (#1,692) doubled O; Feb 8 (#1,695) doubled E; Feb 9 (#1,696) doubled L; Feb 10 (#1,697) doubled E; Feb 13 (#1,700) doubled O; Feb 14 (#1,701) doubled O; Feb 15 (#1,702) doubled L; Feb 16 (#1,703) doubled O; Feb 21 (#1,708) doubled A; Feb 22 (#1,709) doubled A; Feb 23 (#1,710) doubled T; Feb 27 (#1,714) doubled Z.

Uncommon-letter days: Feb 3 (#1,690) used W; Feb 5 (#1,692) used W; Feb 6 (#1,693) used V; Feb 11 (#1,698) used V; Feb 15 (#1,702) used K; Feb 17 (#1,704) used Q; Feb 20 (#1,707) used K; Feb 21 (#1,708) used K and W; Feb 22 (#1,709) used V; Feb 27 (#1,714) used Z.

Repeat days: Feb 2 (#1,689) reused an answer first played in June 2021; Feb 17 (#1,704) reused an answer first played in April 2022; Feb 21 (#1,708) reused an answer first played in June 2021.

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
Feb 28, 2026 Saturday #1,715 → HYDRA Moderate
Feb 27, 2026 Friday #1,714 → DIZZY Hard
Feb 26, 2026 Thursday #1,713 → LANCE Easy
Feb 25, 2026 Wednesday #1,712 → SHRED Moderate
Feb 24, 2026 Tuesday #1,711 → BUYER Easy
Feb 23, 2026 Monday #1,710 → ATTIC Moderate
Feb 22, 2026 Sunday #1,709 → GUAVA Tricky
Feb 21, 2026 Saturday #1,708 → AWAKE Used 2 times Hard
Feb 20, 2026 Friday #1,707 → STANK Tricky
Feb 19, 2026 Thursday #1,706 → HOIST Easy
Feb 18, 2026 Wednesday #1,705 → MOGUL Easy
Feb 17, 2026 Tuesday #1,704 → SQUAD Used 2 times Moderate
Feb 16, 2026 Monday #1,703 → ROOST Moderate
Feb 15, 2026 Sunday #1,702 → SKULL Hard
Feb 14, 2026 Saturday #1,701 → BLOOM Moderate
Feb 13, 2026 Friday #1,700 → MOOCH Hard
Feb 12, 2026 Thursday #1,699 → SURGE Easy
Feb 11, 2026 Wednesday #1,698 → VEGAN Moderate
Feb 10, 2026 Tuesday #1,697 → SCENE Moderate
Feb 9, 2026 Monday #1,696 → CELLO Moderate
Feb 8, 2026 Sunday #1,695 → EMBED Tricky
Feb 7, 2026 Saturday #1,694 → BLEAT Hard
Feb 6, 2026 Friday #1,693 → GAVEL Tricky
Feb 5, 2026 Thursday #1,692 → SWOOP Tricky
Feb 4, 2026 Wednesday #1,691 → CHIDE Hard
Feb 3, 2026 Tuesday #1,690 → WEIGH Moderate
Feb 2, 2026 Monday #1,689 → CIGAR Used 2 times Easy
Feb 1, 2026 Sunday #1,688 → SPINY Tricky

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

28 Answers
S Most common start (8)
E Most common end (5)
DIZZY 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 6
  • Moderate 10
  • Tricky 6
  • Hard 6

From the guides

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