Ever since The New York Times purchased exclusive rights to Wordle at the end of January, fans have been convinced that the daily puzzles are getting harder. Yes, there are occasional tap-ins that we’re comfortably able to solve in two or three guesses, but more often than not, the teasers are taking us to the wire. And then there are the really difficult Wordle puzzles, including one word with an almost 50% failure rate.
According to research carried out by the I’m-a-Puzzle website (based on data gathered on Twitter), PARER caused Wordle fans the most problems in 2022.
PARER – which is a short blade used to peel fruit and vegetables – is the word with the highest failure rate in Wordle. A whopping 48% of players failed to find the answer for the September 16 puzzle.
The second hardest word of 2022 is FOYER, ending thousands of winning streaks with a 26% failure rate.
Perhaps surprisingly, CATCH is listed as the third hardest word, followed by WATCH.The high failure rate probably has something to do with the fact that there are quite a few words ending in ‘ATCH’.
Featuring three uses of the letter ‘M’, recent teaser MUMMY ranked fifth in the list, followed by CATER and COYLY.
TRITE, FOUND and TACIT round out the list of the ten hardest Wordle words of 2022.
As the researcher points out, double and triple letter words seem to cause the most issues, as well as rare and obscure words.
“Wordle took the world by storm when it was first released and remains as one of the most popular online games, played daily by thousands of people,” a spokesperson from I’m-a-Puzzle explains.
“This research discovers some interesting words that many probably wouldn’t have assumed would be the hardest Wordle words, such as CATCH or WATCH.
But then on the other hand NYTimes include more obscure words to catch players out, double letters seem to cause many issues for players with half of this list containing double or triple-letter words.
“Although players hate losing their streaks it’s these more complex and rare words that challenge players and make the game so addictive as well as give players a sense of achievement and often relief when they guess a word correctly.”
Of course, if you want to guarantee success in Wordle, your best bet is to check out Express Online’s daily hints. And don’t worry, it’s not cheating, because our clues are completely spoiler-free.