ALIEN
Yes, ALIEN was the Wordle answer on August 6, 2022 (Wordle #413).
As an opener, it rules out about 96.4% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈeɪ.li.ən//ˈeɪ.ljən/
- Noun
-
A person, animal, plant, or other thing which is from outside the family, group, organization, or territory under consideration.
- Noun
-
A citizen or national of another sovereign state.
- Adjective
-
Not belonging to the same country, land, or government, or to the citizens or subjects thereof; foreign.
“alien subjects, enemies, property, or shores”
- Adjective
-
Very unfamiliar, strange, or removed.
“principles alien to our religion”
Alternative forms: alyaunte, aliene
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: August 6, 2022 (#413).
See the full page for that puzzle: August 6, 2022 (#413).
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 ALIEN performs as a guess
ALIEN 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 90.5% of games, misses completely in 9.5%, and leaves about 86 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #891 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe ALIEN 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 ALIEN 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 ALIEN in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
ALIEN can come back 135 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 ALIEN; 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 ALIEN
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to ALIEN.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing ALIEN:
Research on ALIEN
Game-tree analysis and word research for ALIEN, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with ALIEN, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.61 guesses and ranks #271 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 ALIEN can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, at or below the proven-optimal 3.61, 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 first syllable Say it AYLEEUHN.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, ALIEN is a kind of traveler or intruder.
Synonyms foreign unknown stranger exotic foreigner extraterrestrial
Opposites native intrinsic
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- ALIEN sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 19 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 6, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 80 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.9 of 5).
In a sentence
It was alien to me.
Are you really an alien?
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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).