Accepted guess Not a possible answer A tier for first-turn info

ALDER

ALDER is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɔːldə//ˈɔldɚ//ˈɑldɚ/

Noun

Any of several trees or shrubs of the genus Alnus, belonging to the birch family.

Noun

An alderman or alderwoman.

Alternative forms: owler, aller

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English aldre, alder, aller, from Old English alor, from Proto-West Germanic *aluʀu, from Proto-Germanic *aluz, *alusō, *alizō, *alisō.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it AWLDUR.

In a sentence

There are alder and ash growing in this park.
© tatoeba.org contributor sundown (CC BY 2.0 FR)
He was standing in the middle of the road, near a large alder.
© tatoeba.org contributor jezykiija (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use ALDER in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 95.9% of possible answers.

Wordle status

A word can be a playable guess without being a possible answer.

Playable guess

Yes

Included in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.

Possible answer

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

Past Wordle answer

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

How ALDER performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ALDER as a guess, but the solver does not list it as a possible answer.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 88.1% of games, misses completely in 11.9%, and leaves about 98 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #890 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.60 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.

All gray? Tap a tile to cycle gray → yellow → green.

First-turn measures

All four describe ALDER 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.

5.43 Entropy (bits)
98 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.9% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ALDER 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.

3.60 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#890 Rank among openers
Opening with ALDER left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.60 average. It ranks #890 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
78
3 guesses
990
4 guesses
1,098
5 guesses
173
6 guesses
12

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AELR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
31%
All gray
12%

Feedback distribution

ALDER can come back 123 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

283 answers
167 answers
165 answers
151 answers
119 answers
93 answers
89 answers
87 answers
77 answers
72 answers
56 answers
55 answers
49 answers
46 answers
46 answers
40 answers
34 answers
31 answers
31 answers
27 answers
25 answers
25 answers
24 answers
24 answers
24 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers

Letter-value totals

Base letter-value totals for ALDER; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.

Scrabble

A1L1D2E1R1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.

Strategy after playing ALDER

What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to ALDER.

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ALDER:

12% chance
Suggested:
HOIST
7% chance
Suggested:
SCANT
7% chance
Suggested:
SEINE

Follow-ups for common patterns

Ranked follow-up guesses for the 10 most common feedback patterns.

11.9% →
HOIST 5.91 bits
7.0% →
SCANT 5.07 bits
6.9% →
SEINE 5.55 bits
6.3% →
COURT 5.23 bits
5.0% →
TOISE 4.56 bits
3.9% →
COAST 4.63 bits
3.7% →
STANE 4.60 bits
3.6% →
SILLY 4.88 bits
3.2% →
TOISE 3.39 bits
3.0% →
SONLY 4.39 bits

Research on ALDER

Game-tree analysis and word research for ALDER, with an explanation for each figure.

Optimal play

Opening with ALDER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.60 guesses and ranks #188 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 ALDER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, at or below the proven-optimal 3.60, 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
ALDER sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 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 frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).