ALONE
Yes, ALONE was the Wordle answer on October 9, 2021 (Wordle #112).
As an opener, it rules out about 96.7% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /əˈləʊn//əˈlɛːn//əˈlon/
- Adjective
-
By oneself, solitary.
“I can't ask for help because I am alone.”
- Adjective
-
Lacking peers who share one's beliefs, experiences, practices, etc.
“Senator Craddock wants to abolish the estate tax, and she's not alone.”
- Adverb
-
By oneself; apart from, or exclusive of, others; solo.
“She walked home alone.”
- Adverb
-
Without outside help.
“The job was too hard for me to do alone.”
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: October 9, 2021 (#112).
See the full page for that puzzle: October 9, 2021 (#112).
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 ALONE performs as a guess
ALONE 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 92.1% of games, misses completely in 7.9%, and leaves about 79 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,214 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 ALONE 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 ALONE 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 ALONE in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
ALONE can come back 124 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 ALONE; 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 ALONE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to ALONE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing ALONE:
Research on ALONE
Game-tree analysis and word research for ALONE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with ALONE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.61 guesses and ranks #317 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 ALONE 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
Two syllables, stress on the second syllable Say it UHLOHN.
Related meanings
Synonyms only unique entirely solo lonely exclusively
Opposites social accompanied comparable inclusive
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- ALONE sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 145 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Learner level
- Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A1); among the first words English learners study.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 5, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 57 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
In a sentence
I like to be alone.
Are you in on this alone?
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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0).