According to the Google Trends Year in Search summary, “Wordle” was the most frequently searched worldwide term on Google in 2022. In the United States, the game outperformed phrases like “election results” and “Jeffrey Dahmer” (the second and tenth most popular terms, respectively), as well as “Ukraine” and “Queen Elizabeth” internationally (3rd and 4th).
According to Simon Rogers, Google’s trends data team lead, “you can see that this truly became a common fascination for everyone in the data.”
Wordle is a daily vocabulary game where players are given six guesses to determine the word of the day. Each player receives the same word, which is chosen by a New York Times editor, and they are only permitted to play once each day.
Late in 2021, gamers began posting mysterious emoji square configurations and a text excerpt (often the phrase Wordle followed by the puzzle’s number) on social media, which led people to wonder, “What is Wordle?” Josh Wardle, the programmer who created Wordle originally, sold it to the New York Times Company on January 31 for an unknown “low-seven figure” price.
Interestingly, Wordle ranked higher in Google searches than other, more serious topics like Queen Elizabeth II and Ukraine.
Wordle gained popularity, according to Rogers, because it continually captured people’s attention throughout the year.
In 2022, the majority of the top Google searches for word definitions were likewise five-letter Wordle responses. Google recognized seven of the top 10 meanings as Wordle answers: cacao, homer, canny, foray, trove, saute, and tacit. The five-letter word “rupee”, the name of the currency used in various South Asian nations, was the top trending definition in March. Google does not include rupee as a Wordle-related search in their roundup. The final two words that users looked for definitions for were oligarchy and recession.
It demonstrates, in Rogers’ words, “exactly how much Wordle swept the globe by storm in 2022.” “You can’t overstate it,” she said.
According to Google, the top 2022 global searches were:
I downloaded the “wordle” game app on my phone … and now I have become a wordle addict!! While waiting in line for anything at all – out comes my cell phone to play wordle. I am not surprised that it is the most googled word for 2022.