The answer to Wordle #1,292 was

NERVE: A bundle of neurons with their connective tissue sheaths, blood vessels and lymphatics.

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: a repeated letter, uncommon letters.

Compare past puzzle difficulty →

How difficult was it for the solver?

In a replay of past puzzles, Wordle #1,292 scores 83/100 for solver difficulty (tricky).

5 Possible answers after CRANE
110 Possible answers after SLATE
199 Possible answers after ADIEU
3 Words in the _ERVE family
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 #1,292, measured

This section compares NERVE'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

83/100

This score is a percentile, not an opinion. Under the site's fixed solver settings, NERVE measured harder for the solver than about 83% of all 1,907 recorded answers to date. Its rating is tricky. It repeats E; the example solver route takes four turns.

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 5 of the 2,374 words in the site's working answer pool. At the other end, ADIEU left 199 candidates, about 40 times as many. AUDIO came back all gray. None of its letters appear in NERVE. 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 NERVE, and how many answer-pool words would still match it
OpenerFirst-guess feedbackAnswers still possible
CRANE CRANE 5
TARSE TARSE 14
ARISE ARISE 25
RAISE RAISE 40
TRACE TRACE 40
STARE STARE 49
SLATE SLATE 110
SALET SALET 172
AUDIO AUDIO 193
ADIEU ADIEU 199

“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 NERVE.

The solver reaches the answer in 4 guesses.

Common questions

What was the Wordle answer for January 1, 2025?
The Wordle answer for January 1, 2025 (puzzle #1292) was NERVE.
What does NERVE mean?
NERVE: A bundle of neurons with their connective tissue sheaths, blood vessels and lymphatics.
Why was Wordle #1292 tricky?
NERVE is rated tricky for estimated word difficulty. Why it may be difficult: a repeated letter, uncommon letters.

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