The answer to Wordle #1,277 was

SCOWL: The wrinkling of the brows or face in frowning; the expression of displeasure, sullenness, or discontent in the countenance; an angry frown.

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, uncommon letters, only one vowel.

Compare past puzzle difficulty →

How difficult was it for the solver?

In a replay of past puzzles, Wordle #1,277 scores 61/100 for solver difficulty (middle of the pack).

56 Possible answers after CRANE
18 Possible answers after SLATE
165 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 #1,277, measured

This section compares SCOWL'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

61/100

This score is a percentile, not an opinion. Under the site's fixed solver settings, SCOWL measured harder for the solver than about 61% of all 1,907 recorded answers to date. Its rating is middle of the pack. The example solver route takes four turns; CRANE, SLATE and ADIEU leave about 79.7 possible answers.

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

SLATE left the fewest candidates: its first-guess feedback left 18 of the 2,374 words in the site's working answer pool. At the other end, AUDIO left 286 candidates, about 16 times as many. ADIEU came back all gray. None of its letters appear in SCOWL. 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 SCOWL, and how many answer-pool words would still match it
OpenerFirst-guess feedbackAnswers still possible
SLATE SLATE 18
SALET SALET 25
TRACE TRACE 50
CRANE CRANE 56
STARE STARE 70
ARISE ARISE 81
RAISE RAISE 81
TARSE TARSE 87
ADIEU ADIEU 165
AUDIO AUDIO 286

“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 SCOWL.

The solver reaches the answer in 4 guesses.

Common questions

What was the Wordle answer for December 17, 2024?
The Wordle answer for December 17, 2024 (puzzle #1277) was SCOWL.
What does SCOWL mean?
SCOWL: The wrinkling of the brows or face in frowning; the expression of displeasure, sullenness, or discontent in the countenance; an angry frown.
Why was Wordle #1277 tricky?
SCOWL is rated tricky for estimated word difficulty. Why it may be difficult: uncommon in general English, uncommon letters, only one vowel.

Keep solving and playing