The answer to Wordle #1,520 was

LOUSY: Unwanted and often unpleasant.

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

Word difficulty: Easy

Why it may be easier: five different letters, at least two vowels and none of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

Compare past puzzle difficulty →

How difficult was it for the solver?

In a replay of past puzzles, Wordle #1,520 scores 53/100 for solver difficulty (middle of the pack).

273 Possible answers after CRANE
4 Possible answers after SLATE
193 Possible answers after ADIEU
3 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 #1,520, measured

This section compares LOUSY'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

53/100

This score is a percentile, not an opinion. Under the site's fixed solver settings, LOUSY measured harder for the solver than about 53% of all 1,906 recorded answers to date. Its rating is middle of the pack. 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

SLATE left the fewest candidates: its first-guess feedback left 4 of the 2,374 words in the site's working answer pool. At the other end, CRANE left 273 candidates, about 68 times as many. TRACE and CRANE came back all gray. None of their letters appear in LOUSY. 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 LOUSY, and how many answer-pool words would still match it
OpenerFirst-guess feedbackAnswers still possible
SLATE SLATE 4
SALET SALET 10
ARISE ARISE 17
RAISE RAISE 17
TARSE TARSE 22
STARE STARE 39
AUDIO AUDIO 53
ADIEU ADIEU 193
TRACE TRACE 255
CRANE CRANE 273

“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 LOUSY.

The solver reaches the answer in 3 guesses.

Common questions

What was the Wordle answer for August 17, 2025?
The Wordle answer for August 17, 2025 (puzzle #1520) was LOUSY.
What does LOUSY mean?
LOUSY: Unwanted and often unpleasant.
Why was Wordle #1520 tricky?
LOUSY is rated easy for estimated word difficulty. Why it may be easier: five different letters, at least two vowels and none of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

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