Possible answer Not used yet C tier for first-turn info

CABAL

CABAL is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.

As an opener, it rules out about 86.9% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kəˈbɑːl//kəˈbæl/

Noun

A putative, secret organization of individuals gathered for a political purpose.

“The cabal is plotting to ruin the world.”

Noun

A secret plot.

“The cabal to destroy the building was foiled by federal agents.”

Verb

To engage in the activities of a cabal.

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

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 CABAL performs as a guess

CABAL 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 67.7% of games, misses completely in 32.3%, and leaves about 311 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,131 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.72 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe CABAL 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.

4.18 Entropy (bits)
311 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
86.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 32% of evaluated openers
1.76 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CABAL 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.

3.72 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#8,131 Rank among openers
Opening with CABAL left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.72 average. It ranks #8,131 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
48
3 guesses
824
4 guesses
1,225
5 guesses
236
6 guesses
18
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:
AL

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
68%
Green tile
31%
All gray
32%

Example solver route

R O A T E
N A S A L
C A B A L

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches CABAL in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

CABAL can come back 86 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

766 answers
201 answers
196 answers
143 answers
119 answers
84 answers
79 answers
77 answers
61 answers
46 answers
44 answers
37 answers
36 answers
32 answers
30 answers
29 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
19 answers
16 answers
15 answers
12 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3A1B3A1L1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing CABAL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CABAL:

32% chance
Suggested:
TOISE
8% chance
Suggested:
STIRE
8% chance
Suggested:
TOISE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

32.3%
TOISE 6.10 bits
8.5%
STIRE 5.43 bits
8.3%
TOISE 5.20 bits
6.0%
TORSE 4.88 bits
5.0%
TOISE 5.27 bits
3.5%
SLATE 4.62 bits
3.3%
IRONE 5.13 bits
3.2%
ROUTE 5.25 bits
2.6%
SOWER 4.31 bits
1.9%
TRODE 4.45 bits

Research on CABAL

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

Optimal play

Opening with CABAL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,127 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.88 guesses at best and is rank #3,707 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.72, 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 second syllable Say it KUHBAHL.

Rhymes with MAHAL BANAL LAVAL MOLLE NIDAL

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CABAL is a kind of camp or game.

Synonyms conspiracy faction conjure

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CABAL 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.

In a sentence

Bouteflika cabal could have eroded Algeria into a shell of a nation.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).