Accepted guess Not a possible answer B tier for first-turn info

CANED

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /keɪnd/

Verb

simple past and past participle of cane

Adjective

intoxicated by alcohol or drugs.

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it KAYND.

Rhymes with WANED MANED

Related meanings

Synonyms john fire behind ass bottom seat

Use CANED in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 94.9% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

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

How CANED performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CANED 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 85.6% of games, misses completely in 14.4%, and leaves about 121 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,393 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.61 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 CANED 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.

5.23 Entropy (bits)
121 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.9% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CANED 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.

3.61 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#1,393 Rank among openers
Opening with CANED left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.61 average. It ranks #1,393 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
72
3 guesses
952
4 guesses
1,169
5 guesses
144
6 guesses
15

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AEN

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
38%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

CANED can come back 113 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

343 answers
228 answers
170 answers
138 answers
130 answers
105 answers
89 answers
67 answers
58 answers
52 answers
52 answers
48 answers
44 answers
38 answers
37 answers
35 answers
34 answers
33 answers
31 answers
29 answers
27 answers
25 answers
25 answers
25 answers
22 answers
22 answers
20 answers
20 answers
18 answers
18 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3A1N1E1D2
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing CANED

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CANED:

14% chance
Suggested:
MOIST
10% chance
Suggested:
TORSE
7% chance
Suggested:
SLART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.4% →
MOIST 5.78 bits
9.6% →
TORSE 5.44 bits
7.1% →
SLART 5.49 bits
5.8% →
SLART 5.35 bits
5.5% →
SOLAR 4.07 bits
4.4% →
SOILY 4.81 bits
3.7% →
SATYR 4.30 bits
2.8% →
TOUCH 4.65 bits
2.4% →
IRONE 4.35 bits
2.2% →
DROIT 4.55 bits

Research on CANED

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

Optimal play

Opening with CANED, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.61 guesses and ranks #271 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 CANED can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.61, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CANED sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.6 of 5).

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).