These Were Wordle’s Toughest 10 Words of 2025. How Many Did You Get?
Has Wordle kept you busy this year? Some words are more difficult than others. INBOX — the Wordle response on April 19 – was this year’s most difficult Wordle puzzle in the United States, according to language learning platform Preply, which connects learners with tutors.
Preply identified the trickiest word by analyzing Google search interest for “Word Clue” in each puzzle from January to November. It selected the most difficult puzzles by examining those that “produced the largest relative spikes nationally and within each U.S. state.”
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Preply has listed nine other words ranked as the most difficult in 2025. (It looks like August 13 and 14 were a particularly stressful time for puzzles.) Here’s a look at the top 10.
- INBOX (April 19)
- EDIFY (June 6)
- KEFIR (August 13)
- KNELL (August 14)
- LORIS (July 18)
- QUOTA (March 30)
- HAZELNUT (April 7)
- IDIOM (May 30)
- IMBUE (August 8)
- GIZMO (November 11)
EDIFY – meaning to instruct or improve – and KEFIR – a fermented milk drink – may have led to a lot of Google searches.
But not all words were puzzles. Preply found that the easiest puzzles to solve in 2025 were FLESH (September 11), BLUNT (September 24), and SPORT (May 27).
Spotify Wrapped for Wordle, sort of
You know Spotify wrappedthe annual summary of each user’s music service of the year in Spotify songs. There is a similar annual summary for YouTube videos. Now, the New York Times is getting in on the trend with an end-of-year recap aimed at players of Wordle and its other games, like Connections.
For Wordle, the Times’ Year in Games summary shows how many days you solved a puzzle, what time of day you did most of your solving, which Wordle you solved the fastest, how many guesses it took you on average, and your most common seed word.
For Connections, it shows how many times you solved it without any mistakes, what was the trickiest puzzle of the year (hint: the one with all the symbols), and which color category you usually solved first.
For Spelling Bee, it shows how many words you found all year, what your longest found word was, how many times you used all seven letters to find a pangram, and how many times you reached Genius level.
For Strands, this shows how many times you solved it without any guidance and what your longest streak was.
The summary also shows what your most played game was this year. (Connections to win!) As with other similar summaries, you can share the summary of your results if you wish.
For more information about the puzzles, you can check out CNET’s Daily Answers and Cheats for Wordle, The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands. And you can consult our guide to most popular letters to make your starting word as strong as possible.
