The answer to Wordle #1,268 was

HYENA: Any of the medium-sized to large feliform carnivores of the family Hyaenidae, native to Africa and Asia and noted for the sound similar to laughter which they can make if excited.

Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected and lightly formatted from Wiktionary; long entries may be shortened.

Word difficulty: Tricky

Why it may be difficult: uncommon in general English.

Compare past puzzle difficulty →

How difficult was it for the solver?

In a replay of past puzzles, Wordle #1,268 scores 64/100 for solver difficulty (middle of the pack).

3 Possible answers after CRANE
63 Possible answers after SLATE
190 Possible answers after ADIEU
4 Guesses in the solver replay

This compares past puzzles under the same solver settings; it does not measure how players performed. Compare more puzzles →

Wordle #1,268, measured

This section compares HYENA's solver-difficulty percentile, first-guess results for ten familiar openers, and opt-in player reports. Each number identifies its dataset.

Solver difficulty, as a percentile

64/100

This score is a percentile, not an opinion. Under the site's fixed solver settings, HYENA measured harder for the solver than about 64% of all 1,906 recorded answers to date. Its rating is middle of the pack. The example solver route takes four turns; CRANE, SLATE and ADIEU leave a large group.

Solver pressure ranks the answer within the pool; it does not measure player performance. The opener table compares first-guess results, and the contributed ratings report player results.

CRANE, SLATE and ADIEU benchmark

CRANE left the fewest candidates: its first-guess feedback left 3 of the 2,374 words in the site's working answer pool. At the other end, AUDIO left 442 candidates, about 147 times as many. The vowel-heavy probes ADIEU and AUDIO revealed comparatively little here. Vowel coverage helps only when the answer's vowels are still in doubt.

First-guess feedback each opener would have received against HYENA, and how many answer-pool words would still match it
OpenerFirst-guess feedbackAnswers still possible
CRANE CRANE 3
TARSE TARSE 47
TRACE TRACE 50
STARE STARE 53
SLATE SLATE 63
RAISE RAISE 70
ARISE ARISE 82
SALET SALET 83
ADIEU ADIEU 190
AUDIO AUDIO 442

“Answers still possible” counts the words in the site's 2,374-word working answer pool whose feedback would match that opener exactly. This is pattern arithmetic, not a simulation. A smaller number means the opener left fewer possible answers after the first guess. It does not describe later turns.

Contributed player ratings

Not enough contributed games to publish player figures for this puzzle. Per-puzzle numbers appear only after at least 10 opt-in games arrive. See how the Observatory collects and publishes player data →

What did you get?

Tap your result to compare it with contributed games. Your choice stays in this browser and is not sent anywhere.

1 Suppressed
2 Suppressed
3 Suppressed
4 Suppressed
5 Suppressed
6 Suppressed
X Suppressed

The bars pool all 26 contributed games across every completed puzzle. The Observatory does not publish per-puzzle guess distributions below its sample threshold, so this is the broadest available comparison. “Suppressed” marks a low-count cell.

Solver replay

One route our solver takes from its usual opening word to HYENA.

The solver reaches the answer in 4 guesses.

Common questions

What was the Wordle answer for December 8, 2024?
The Wordle answer for December 8, 2024 (puzzle #1268) was HYENA.
What does HYENA mean?
HYENA: Any of the medium-sized to large feliform carnivores of the family Hyaenidae, native to Africa and Asia and noted for the sound similar to laughter which they can make if excited.
Why was Wordle #1268 tricky?
HYENA is rated tricky for estimated word difficulty. Why it may be difficult: uncommon in general English.

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