ADOBE
Yes, ADOBE was the Wordle answer on July 29, 2021 (Wordle #40).
As an opener, it rules out about 94.1% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /əˈdəʊ.bi//əˈdoʊ.bi/
- Noun
-
An unburnt brick dried in the sun.
“Many people in Texas and New Mexico live in adobe houses.”
- Noun
-
The earth from which such bricks are made.
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
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 29, 2021 (#40).
See the full page for that puzzle: July 29, 2021 (#40).
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 ADOBE performs as a guess
ADOBE is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 87.3% of games, misses completely in 12.7%, and leaves about 140 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,134 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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 ADOBE 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 ADOBE 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 ADOBE in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
ADOBE can come back 95 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 ADOBE; 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 ADOBE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to ADOBE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing ADOBE:
Research on ADOBE
Game-tree analysis and word research for ADOBE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with ADOBE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,849 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 ADOBE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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.
How it sounds
Three syllables, stress on the second syllable Say it UHDOHBEE.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, ADOBE is a kind of clay or brick.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- ADOBE sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 3 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.2 of 5).
In a sentence
Welcome to my humble adobe.
The houses were built from adobe mud.
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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).