Canada's trickiest Wordle word of 2025 was ROUGH, experts reveal

If you’re one of the millions of daily Wordle players and sometimes have trouble figuring out the correct five-letter answer, or maybe even have to ask for help, you should know you’re not alone.

Research conducted by “word unscrambling experts” at the website unscramblerer.com has revealed that thousands of Canadians google “Wordle hint” or variations of that phrase every day. The experts crunched those numbers to determine the most difficult puzzles for the past year, for the nation and by province.

Across Canada, the hardest Wordle word of 2025 landed on June 1, and it was ROUGH. (That’s both the word and a description of it.)

Summer seems to been a more perplexing time for puzzlers. After ROUGH came WHOLE (July 27), LOUSY (Aug. 17), FUGUE (Nov. 9) and ATRIA (July 6).

Those unscrambling experts also point out that most people just watch a nudge to get the answer — they don’t want it handed to them.

“Wordle players in Canada are 25 times more likely to search for ‘Wordle hint’ than ‘Wordle Solver,'” a spokesperson for the site said. “Canadians love to solve the puzzle themselves, even at the risk of breaking a winning streak.” They added: “Hints are a great tool that keeps the game fun when solving a hard Wordle.”

On a provincial level, Ontario and Manitoba matched the national data, with ROUGH as the toughest word. LOUSY stumped British Columbia and neighbouring Alberta, while DOWEL proved tricky for Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories. Other regions were tripped up by ATRIA (Nova Scotia), SWING (Prince Edward Island), MINTY (Newfoundland), COVEN (Yukon), TENOR (Nunavut) and FUGUE (Quebec).

Quebec also had the lowest number of “Wordle hint” searches for the year with fewer than 60,000. That could be because French-speakers are less enthralled with the English-language game, or because they’re smarter. You decide.

For those keeping track, Canada’s hardest Wordle puzzle of the previous year was BRAWN on Dec. 22, 2024. This year has included such humdingers as GUMBO, QUARK and OOMPH, and we’re not even three weeks in.

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