You're probably here because your grid is looking a little too yellow for comfort. Or maybe it's completely grey and you're down to that final, sweating-bullets sixth attempt. It happens. Honestly, the wordle answer may 7 2025 is one of those words that feels easy once you see it, but getting there is a total nightmare because of how many similar-sounding neighbors it has.
Wordle has this funny way of making us feel like geniuses one day and absolute amateurs the next. Today is one of those "amateur" days for a lot of people. If you're currently staring at a screen with S-H-A-- and realizing there are about fourteen different directions that word could go, you aren't alone. Josh Wardle, the original creator, probably didn't intend for the game to become a global morning ritual of stress, but here we are. Since the New York Times took over, the curation has shifted slightly, favoring words that have a bit more "teeth."
Today’s word is SHAVE.
What Makes Wordle 1236 So Difficult?
Most players who lose their streak on a word like SHAVE do so because of "The Trap." You know the one. You get the -AVE suffix early on. You feel great. You've got four green tiles! Then you realize you have to guess between SHARE, SHAKE, SHAME, SHAPE, SHAVE, and SHADE.
If you don't have enough rows left to eliminate those starting consonants, you're basically playing a game of Russian roulette with the alphabet. This is where high-level Wordle strategy comes into play. Instead of guessing a word that fits the pattern, you have to burn a turn. You use a word like PRISM or DUMPY—something that doesn't fit the green tiles at all but knocks out three or four of those potential lead-in letters. It feels counter-intuitive to type in a word you know is wrong, but it’s the only way to survive a trap.
The Linguistic Breakdown of SHAVE
The word SHAVE is a classic Germanic-rooted English word. It comes from the Old English scafan, which basically means to scrape or plane away. It's a "solid" word. No double letters today, which usually makes things easier, but the sheer volume of "S-H-A" combinations in the English language creates a statistical bottleneck.
Think about the phonetics. The "v" sound is relatively rare in Wordle. According to various data scientists who scrape the NYT archives, "V" is one of the least frequently used letters in the game, sitting down there near "X" and "Z" in terms of probability. Most people don't guess "V" in their first two or three words. They’re looking for "R," "T," or "N." When you’re hunting for the wordle answer may 7 2025, you likely exhausted all the common consonants before even considering that a "V" might be hiding in the fourth slot.
Why Your Starting Word Failed You Today
If you started with ADIEU or AUDIO, you got the "A" and maybe the "E." That’s fine. But those vowel-heavy starts are starting to lose their effectiveness as the NYT editors lean harder into consonant-heavy traps.
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Lately, the trend among "pro" players has shifted toward STARE or SLATE. If you used STARE today, you got the S, A, and E. That’s a blessing and a curse. It puts you right in the middle of the "A-E" trap mentioned earlier. You’ve got the skeleton of the word, but none of the meat.
I’ve seen people on Twitter and Threads absolutely losing it today because they guessed SHAKE on try four, SHAPE on try five, and SHAME on try six. It’s brutal. It’s a literal coin flip at that point. To avoid this in the future, you have to be disciplined. If you see more than three possibilities for a word, stop trying to get the answer. Use a "sacrificial" word to test the consonants.
A Look Back at May 7th Puzzles
Historically, early May has been a bit of a mixed bag for Wordle. Last year, we saw some mid-tier difficulty words, but the wordle answer may 7 2025 feels particularly aggressive because of that "V."
The game has changed since 2022. We’ve seen the removal of "obscure" words and plural versions of four-letter words (mostly), which actually makes the game harder in a weird way. It narrows the pool down to common five-letter words, and common words are more likely to have "rhyme traps." It’s much easier to guess a unique word like ZONAL than it is to guess a word with twenty different variants like SHAVE.
Tips for Tomorrow’s Puzzle
Don't let today's loss (or near-loss) get to you. Wordle is a game of probability, not just vocabulary.
First, change your starting word if it isn't giving you consonants. Vowels are easy to find; consonants are what solve the puzzle. Second, if you find yourself in a "___VE" or "___RE" situation, use a word that tests multiple lead-in letters at once. For example, if you're stuck between SHAPE and SHAVE, a word like VAPID would test both the "V" and the "P" in one go.
If you managed to get SHAVE in three or four tries, pat yourself on the back. You likely avoided the trap by sheer luck or by being smart enough to test the "V" early. For everyone else, there’s always the Archive or the various clones like Quordle to blow off some steam.
Take a breath. It's just a game of squares. But also, maybe don't lead with ADIEU tomorrow. Try something with an "S" and a "T." You'll thank yourself when you aren't staring at a broken streak on a Wednesday morning.
Actionable Next Steps:
- Analyze your game path: Did you fall into the "A-E" trap? If so, mark down which consonants you guessed first.
- Update your starting word list to include at least two words that cover the top ten most frequent consonants (R, S, T, L, N, etc.).
- Review the "V" placement in recent games; it often appears in the 4th position when paired with an "E" at the end.