ABATE
Yes, ABATE was the Wordle answer on July 7, 2021 (Wordle #18).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /əˈbeɪt//əˈbeət/
- Verb
-
To lessen (something) in force or intensity; to moderate.
- Verb
-
To reduce (something) in amount or size.
- Noun
-
Abatement; reduction; (countable) an instance of this.
- Noun
-
Deduction; subtraction; (countable) an instance of this.
Alternative forms: abbate
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Anglo-Norman abatre, probably an alteration of Anglo-Norman and Middle French embatre, enbatre (“to drive or rush into; to enter into a tenement without permission”) (compare Late Latin abatare), from Middle French, Old French em-, en- (prefix meaning ‘in, into’) + Middle French, Old French batre (“to beat, hit, strike”) (from Latin battere, battuere, the present active infinitive of battuō (“to beat, hit; to beat up; to fight”); see further at etymology 1).
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
Two syllables, stress on the second syllable Say it UHBAYT.
Rhymes with GREAT STATE EIGHT PLATE SLATE
Related meanings
Synonyms SLACK
In a sentence
And that is unlikely to abate.
The storm is starting to abate.
Use ABATE in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 92.7% of possible answers.
Wordle status
A word can be a playable guess without being a possible answer.
Playable guess
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: July 7, 2021 (#18).
See the full page for that puzzle: July 7, 2021 (#18).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How ABATE performs as a guess
ABATE is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 81.7% of games, misses completely in 18.3%, and leaves about 173 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,387 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.77 guesses in games solved within six turns.
Try your feedback pattern
Tap the tiles to match your feedback, then see the ranked follow-up guesses.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe ABATE used as an opening guess. Entropy is the same idea as “avg ruled out” on a log scale: a higher number means the guess splits the possible answers into more, smaller groups.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How ABATE performed in the previous complete opener benchmark, against its captured answer snapshot. These research figures are separate from today's solver recommendations. See the data page for the method.
Composition
Feedback chances
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches ABATE in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
ABATE can come back 84 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for ABATE; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing ABATE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to ABATE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing ABATE:
Research on ABATE
Game-tree analysis and word research for ABATE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with ABATE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,038 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with ABATE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.77, at or below the proven-optimal 3.77, because the two figures score different answer lists.
These figures come from exhaustive game-tree search and are exact for the NYT lists of July 2023 (3,158 answers). They do not use the site's working answer pool.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- ABATE sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.
Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).