5 FiveLetterWords
Accepted guess Not a possible answer C tier for first-turn info

ARGAL

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with ARGAL Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɑːɹɡəl/

Adverb

thus, therefore

Noun

crude tartar.

Noun

An argali (species of sheep, ammon ovis from the subfamily caprinae from family bovidae).

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

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

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

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

How ARGAL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ARGAL 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 78.6% of games, misses completely in 21.4%, and leaves about 210 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,937 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.74 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

A___L A in the 1st position and L in the 5th position A__A_ A in the 1st position and A in the 4th position _R__L R in the 2nd position and L in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in ARGAL.

First-turn measures

All four describe ARGAL 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.

4.45 Entropy (bits)
210 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 48% of evaluated openers
1.50 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ARGAL 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.

3.74 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#8,937 Rank among openers
Opening with ARGAL left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.74 average. It ranks #8,937 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
57
3 guesses
805
4 guesses
1,208
5 guesses
257
6 guesses
24
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.46 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ALR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
28%
All gray
21%

Feedback distribution

ARGAL can come back 96 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

508 answers
280 answers
228 answers
214 answers
132 answers
118 answers
107 answers
78 answers
51 answers
44 answers
41 answers
39 answers
31 answers
28 answers
27 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
23 answers
21 answers
21 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

A1R1G2A1L1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Try next

TOISE SORER CASTE BIOSE CONTE MATEY

Strategy after playing ARGAL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ARGAL:

21% chance
Suggested:
TOISE
12% chance
Suggested:
SORER
10% chance
Suggested:
CASTE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.4% →
TOISE 6.07 bits
11.8% →
SORER 5.29 bits
9.6% →
CASTE 5.41 bits
9.0% →
BIOSE 5.11 bits
5.6% →
CONTE 4.90 bits
5.0% →
MATEY 4.40 bits
4.5% →
STALE 4.90 bits
3.3% →
SONDE 5.04 bits
2.1% →
TOILE 3.84 bits
1.9% →
SINCE 3.65 bits

Research on ARGAL

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

Optimal play

Opening with ARGAL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,161 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 ARGAL can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.74, at or below the proven-optimal 3.77, 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 first syllable Say it AHRGUHL. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
ARGAL sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).