APNEA
APNEA is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.
As an opener, it rules out about 92.1% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈæp.ni.ə/
- Noun
-
The cessation of breathing, most often in reference to transient instances thereof during sleep.
Alternative forms: apnoea, apnœa
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
Not used yetNo past answer date found.
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 APNEA performs as a guess
APNEA 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 81.7% of games, misses completely in 18.3%, and leaves about 188 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,334 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.77 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 APNEA 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 APNEA 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 APNEA in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
APNEA can come back 83 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 APNEA; 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 APNEA
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to APNEA.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing APNEA:
Research on APNEA
Game-tree analysis and word research for APNEA, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with APNEA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.76 guesses and ranks #8,454 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 APNEA can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.77; proven optimal play reaches 3.76. 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
Three syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it APNEEUH.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, APNEA is a kind of symptom.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- APNEA sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once 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 internal bodily sensation (2.8 of 5).
In a sentence
Tom suffers from sleep apnea.
Email apnea happens while holding your breath when reading emails.
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).