ALLEY
Yes, ALLEY was the Wordle answer on April 12, 2026 (Wordle #1758).
As an opener, it rules out about 92.7% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈæl.i/
- Noun
-
A narrow street or passageway, especially one through the middle of a block giving access to the rear of lots of buildings.
“The parking lot to my friend's apartment building is in the alley.”
- Noun
-
The area between the outfielders.
“He hit one deep into the alley.”
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: April 12, 2026 (#1758).
See the full page for that puzzle: April 12, 2026 (#1758).
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 ALLEY performs as a guess
ALLEY 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 83.9% of games, misses completely in 16.1%, and leaves about 173 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,045 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.81 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 ALLEY 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 ALLEY 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 ALLEY in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
ALLEY can come back 89 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 ALLEY; 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 ALLEY
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to ALLEY.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing ALLEY:
Research on ALLEY
Game-tree analysis and word research for ALLEY, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with ALLEY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,782 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 ALLEY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.81; proven optimal play reaches 3.78. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.
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
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it ALEE.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, ALLEY is a kind of street or lane.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- ALLEY sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 7 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 7, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 86 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.8 of 5).
In a sentence
I found her in the alley.
It is right up his alley.
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).