Wordle puzzle No. 1786 landed on May 10, 2026, and it gave players a harder-than-usual run: ’ Wordlebot said the answer took an average of 4.6 guesses. That put the game among the more difficult Wordles the newspaper had served up so far in 2026.
The numbers show just how much work it took. Only 4% of players solved it on the second turn, 8% got it in three tries and 37% finished in four. By turn five, 75.7% had the answer, while 94.7% got there within six guesses. A little over 5% could not solve it at all.
What made the puzzle tougher was not a strange letter mix but a trap hidden in plain sight. A single letter appeared twice, and one of the repeated vowels sat at the end of the word. That kind of pattern can mislead even careful players, especially when the grid seems to be narrowing but still leaves room for more than one answer.
The difficulty also fits into a familiar Wordle conversation: whether a puzzle feels brutal because of obscure letters or because it quietly repeats something players are not expecting. Last year’s hard entries offered their own version of that test. TIZZY received a 5.4 rating from Wordlebot, while EAGER was rated 6.0. Both are reminders that a short word can still force players to spend all six guesses if the letters and placement work against them.
For players checking today wordle hints after the fact, the lesson from No. 1786 is simple. Repetition mattered, especially at the end of the word, and the scoreboard showed it. The puzzle was solved by most players, but not cleanly, and that is what made it newsworthy on May 10: it looked ordinary until the guesses started piling up.
