UnscrambleX data · 2025–2026

Where America looks up the daily word puzzle answer

Name: Which States Look Up Daily Word Puzzle Answers the Most
Creator: UnscrambleX
Published: 2026-10-16

When a daily word puzzle leaves one word unsolved, a lot of people search for the answer. We counted who did, state by state, on the 167 biggest puzzle days from June 2025 to October 2026. Washington, D.C. looked answers up 2.5× as often as the US average, Vermont 1.9× and New Hampshire 1.9×, while Mississippi looked them up 21% as often.

167puzzle days over 16 months, June 2025 to October 2026

43,847people we could place in a state on those days

3states at 1.75× the US average or more (Vermont, New Hampshire, Minnesota), plus D.C.

0.91rank correlation between the 72 puzzles of 2025 and the 95 of 2026: different puzzles, nearly the same order

Key findings

Washington, D.C. looks the answer up most: 2.5× as often per resident as the US average, ahead of Vermont (1.9×), New Hampshire (1.9×) and Minnesota (1.8×).
The South looks it up least. Mississippi is lowest at 0.21× the US average, about one lookup for every five in the average state, then West Virginia (0.41×) and Alabama (0.48×). The South as a whole is at 0.72×.
It is not one hard word. Ranked separately, the 72 puzzles of 2025 and the 95 of 2026 put the states in nearly the same order (rank correlation 0.91).

The map

1.6× or more1.15–1.6×about average0.6–0.85×under 0.6×

How often each state looked up the answer, relative to its population. 1.0× is the US average. Hover or tap a state for its number.

Most likely to look it up

District of Columbia 2.5×
Vermont 1.9×
New Hampshire 1.9×
Minnesota 1.8×
Massachusetts 1.7×
Wisconsin 1.6×
Iowa 1.5×
Nebraska 1.5×
Washington 1.5×
Maine 1.5×

Least likely to look it up

Nevada 0.69×
Florida 0.67×
Texas 0.62×
South Carolina 0.59×
Arkansas 0.53×
Oklahoma 0.52×
Louisiana 0.50×
Alabama 0.48×
West Virginia 0.41×
Mississippi 0.21×

North and South

The pattern runs north to south more than coast to coast. New England and the upper Midwest look answers up most; the Deep South least. The order of the four regions was the same for the 2025 puzzles and the 2026 ones.

Northeast1.3×Highest: Vermont 1.9×

Midwest1.3×Highest: Minnesota 1.8×

West0.99×Highest: Washington 1.5×

South0.72×Highest: District of Columbia 2.5×

Every state, ranked

Rank	State	vs US average	2025	2026
1	District of Columbia	2.5×	1	1
2	Vermont	1.9×	4	2
3	New Hampshire	1.9×	2	3
4	Minnesota	1.8×	3	4
5	Massachusetts	1.7×	9	5
6	Wisconsin	1.6×	5	7
7	Iowa	1.5×	6	8
8	Nebraska	1.5×	11	6
9	Washington	1.5×	10	9
10	Maine	1.5×	8	12
11	Colorado	1.5×	16	10
12	Connecticut	1.5×	13	11
13	Rhode Island	1.5×	7	13
14	Oregon	1.4×	14	14
15	Kansas	1.4×	17	15
16	Illinois	1.3×	18	16
17	New York	1.3×	20	18
18	Pennsylvania	1.3×	19	19
19	Montana	1.2×	15	23
20	Delaware	1.2×	35	17
21	Maryland	1.2×	22	22
22	Ohio	1.1×	24	24
23	Missouri	1.1×	28	20
24	New Jersey	1.1×	25	25
25	Utah	1.1×	29	21
26	Michigan	1.1×	26	27
27	Virginia	1.1×	23	28
28	Wyoming	1.0×	33	26
29	Hawaii	0.98×	21	33
30	North Carolina	0.96×	34	29
31	South Dakota	0.95×	12	38
32	North Dakota	0.95×	30	31
33	Indiana	0.92×	31	30
34	Idaho	0.90×	32	32
35	Arizona	0.88×	27	36
36	California	0.82×	38	34
37	Kentucky	0.76×	45	35
38	Alaska	0.76×	36	40
39	Georgia	0.76×	40	37
40	Tennessee	0.75×	39	39
41	New Mexico	0.74×	37	42
42	Nevada	0.69×	44	41
43	Florida	0.67×	41	43
44	Texas	0.62×	46	44
45	South Carolina	0.59×	47	45
46	Arkansas	0.53×	42	47
47	Oklahoma	0.52×	43	48
48	Louisiana	0.50×	48	49
49	Alabama	0.48×	49	46
50	West Virginia	0.41×	50	50
51	Mississippi	0.21×	51	51

The biggest puzzle days

The answers searched most in the US on a single day, counted as Google search impressions for the word's scrambled letters. Food words keep turning up (POMELO, LYCHEE, ABALONE), as in our puzzle words study.

#	Word	Day	Impressions
1	NEROLI	May 28, 2026	67,281
2	POMELO	May 18, 2026	37,803
3	EYEBALL	April 28, 2026	13,286
4	ORCHARDS	October 26, 2025	12,826
5	LYCHEE	April 3, 2026	12,745
6	TENUOUS	November 14, 2025	11,263
7	ETUDE	June 16, 2025	10,058
8	AWESOME	January 11, 2026	7,583
9	NAUGHT	June 21, 2025	6,970
10	NEGLIGIBLE	March 5, 2026	6,957

How we measured it

The puzzle days. From Google Search Console: the 167 days between June 4, 2025 and October 10, 2026 when one answer's scrambled letters drew at least 1,000 search impressions in the US in a day. Impressions count everyone who searched, not only the people who clicked through.
Who looked. Google Analytics visitors to that word's pages on the day and the day after, by state. Traffic from data centres (Ashburn, Virginia, and similar towns) is removed.
Without Safari. Safari's iCloud Private Relay routes many iPhone users through other towns, which puts them in the wrong state. We count visitors on other browsers, whose location is reliable. Removing Safari would, if anything, raise the South's numbers, where fewer people use iPhones, and the South still comes last.
The number. A state's share of all lookups divided by its share of the US population (Census Bureau 2025 estimates). 1.0× is average; 2.0× means twice as many lookups per resident.
What it means. More lookups can mean more people playing the puzzle, more people getting stuck, or both. It is not a measure of who is smarter.
Does it hold? Ranked separately, the 72 puzzles of 2025 and the 95 of 2026 put the states in nearly the same order (rank correlation 0.91); the table shows both. D.C. is a city, not a state, and small states have smaller samples, so their ranks move more.

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US map: how often each state looked up the daily word puzzle answer per resident, relative to the US average. Highest: District of Columbia 2.5×, Vermont 1.9×, New Hampshire 1.9×. Lowest: Mississippi 0.21×. — Where America looks up the daily word puzzle answer

Bar chart: lookups of the daily word puzzle answer per resident, relative to the US average. Most: District of Columbia 2.5×, Vermont 1.9×, New Hampshire 1.9×, Minnesota 1.8×, Massachusetts 1.7×, Wisconsin 1.6×, Iowa 1.5×, Nebraska 1.5×, Washington 1.5×, Maine 1.5×. Least: Oklahoma 0.52×, Louisiana 0.50×, Alabama 0.48×, West Virginia 0.41×, Mississippi 0.21×. — The states most and least likely to look up the puzzle answer

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Reporters, teachers and bloggers are welcome to republish any number, table or chart on this page. Please credit UnscrambleX with a link to unscramblex.com.

Questions, a spreadsheet of the figures or a figure for your own state or town: Adrian Talvik, adrian@unscramblex.com.