Wordle Difficulty Today & Over Time
How hard is today's Wordle compared to the average? Does difficulty change from month to month, or by day of the week? We score every puzzle by analyzing letter rarity, repeated letters, and how many similar alternatives exist across 504 archived puzzles.
Today's Wordle Difficulty
Friday, May 22, 2026 · #1798Score updates daily at midnight ET.
Over 504 archived puzzles, the average Difficulty Index is 100 by definition. The easiest month was September 2025 at 96, while the hardest was July 2025 at 104. Each puzzle is scored by analyzing the word's characteristics: letter rarity, repeated letters, and how many similar alternatives could trap guessers.
Difficulty by Month
Average Difficulty Index per month. The visible range is zoomed to 92–108 so small month-over-month differences are readable.
Wordle Difficulty by Day of Week
Are certain weekdays consistently harder? Average Difficulty Index grouped by the day the puzzle was published, axis 95–105.
Index: 100 = average difficulty across all days.
The Hardest Wordle Puzzles of All Time
Since Wordle launched, over 1,700 puzzles have been published. Not all are created equal. Some words stump far more players than usual, driving up fail rates and guess counts. We score each with a Difficulty Index based on word characteristics — letter rarity, repeated letters, and the number of similar alternatives — where 100 is an average day and anything above 130 means a genuinely hard puzzle.
At the top of the archive sits JUMPY (#1482), with a Difficulty Index of 129. It stands out as the clearest outlier in the archive, well above a typical 100-index puzzle day.
| # | Word | Date | Difficulty Index | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | JUMPY#1482 | Jul 10, 2025 | 129(1.3×) | Extreme |
| 2 | FIZZY#1747 | Apr 1, 2026 | 127(1.3×) | Extreme |
| 3 | GOODY#1332 | Feb 10, 2025 | 123(1.2×) | Very Hard |
| 4 | DOWDY#1789 | May 13, 2026 | 123(1.2×) | Very Hard |
| 5 | FUZZY#1350 | Feb 28, 2025 | 121(1.2×) | Very Hard |
| 6 | WAVER#1790 | May 14, 2026 | 121(1.2×) | Very Hard |
| 7 | BASTE#1370 | Mar 20, 2025 | 119(1.2×) | Very Hard |
| 8 | WEAVE#1766 | Apr 20, 2026 | 119(1.2×) | Very Hard |
| 9 | TIZZY#1493 | Jul 21, 2025 | 118(1.2×) | Very Hard |
| 10 | DIZZY#1714 | Feb 27, 2026 | 118(1.2×) | Very Hard |
| 11 | SILLY#1309 | Jan 18, 2025 | 117(1.2×) | Very Hard |
| 12 | FILLY#1661 | Jan 5, 2026 | 117(1.2×) | Very Hard |
| 13 | SULLY#1676 | Jan 20, 2026 | 117(1.2×) | Very Hard |
| 14 | ROWER#1310 | Jan 19, 2025 | 115(1.1×) | Very Hard |
| 15 | DUMMY#1409 | Apr 28, 2025 | 115(1.1×) | Very Hard |
Difficulty Index: 100 = average difficulty based on word characteristics. Higher values mean harder puzzles.
What Makes These Words Hard
Where Wordle & 5-Letter Word Puzzles Are Most Popular
Wordle may have started as an English-language game, but its reach is genuinely global. Search activity for 5-letter word help spans 99 countries, though the distribution is far from even.
The US leads in total search volume by a wide margin. But adjust for population and the picture flips: New Zealand leads per capita at 2.8× the US rate, followed by Ireland at 2.5×.
Per-Capita Interest Index
Normalized by internet population. US = 100 baseline.
Wordle & 5-Letter Word Popularity by Country
Top Cities
When Is Wordle Most Active?
Wordle resets at midnight ET, and the effect on search activity is immediate. The daily pattern tells a clear story about when the game fits into routines and which days prove most challenging.
The morning spike is unmistakable: activity peaks at 8 AM ET, right when early solvers hit a wall on the new puzzle. By the afternoon it tapers off, with a smaller bump in the evening. Friday sees the most search activity at 9% above average, while Saturday dips about 10% below.
Activity by Hour (ET)
Activity by Day of Week
Index: 100 = average. Values above 100 indicate higher-than-average activity.
The Most Searched 5-Letter Word Letters
Not all letters are searched equally. Some dominate simply because more words start or end with them. Others are searched far more than their frequency would suggest, revealing which letters genuinely puzzle solvers.
S leads starting-letter searches and E dominates endings, which makes sense given how common both are in English. What's more interesting is the gap between frequency and demand. X is searched 4.2× more than expected, suggesting genuine curiosity about rare letter combinations.
Starting Letters
Ending Letters
The Surprise Gap: Searched vs Expected
Letters that are searched disproportionately more (or less) than their actual frequency in 5-letter words.
The Most Common Wordle Strategies
When stuck on a Wordle puzzle, what comes first: a known position, a contained letter, or a list of eliminated ones? The answer reveals something interesting about how word puzzles are approached.
The green tile comes first: 85% of searches begin with a known letter position, which suggests the edges of a word (the first and last letters) tend to be solved before the middle. Meanwhile, 15% of searches arrive with no clues at all, before any guesses have narrowed things down.
First Clue Type Used
Which clue type is entered first in a search?
Clue Depth Per Search
How many filter types (position, contains, excludes) are combined in a typical search?
What 5-Letter Words the World Searches For
Beyond individual letters, the full search patterns tell a deeper story. Some searches are precise, with a known starting letter and a few exclusions. Others cast a wider net. Here's how those patterns break down.
The most common search pattern is using all three filter types at once, accounting for 36% of all searches. And the connection between puzzle difficulty and search volume is strong: on days with a tough Wordle, activity jumps by an average of 29%.
Search Pattern Types
Wordle on Mobile vs Desktop
The split between mobile (46%) and desktop (48%) is nearly even, with tablets accounting for 6%. Desktop usage peaks during work hours, while mobile dominates mornings, evenings, and weekends — consistent with Wordle being a daily ritual that fits into short breaks.
Surprising Facts About Wordle & 5-Letter Words
Some numbers from the analysis stood out as particularly unexpected or noteworthy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Solving Wordle?
Filter by position, contained letters, and exclusions
Try our 5-Letter Word Finder →Data Source
Based on Google Search Console and site analytics from wordfinder5letters.com, which tracked 504 puzzles in 99 countries. To find out how hard a puzzle is compared to an average day, the difficulty score looks at things like how rare the letters are, how many times they repeat, and how many similar options there are. Internet population is used to normalize per-capita rankings, so countries of all sizes can be compared fairly.