5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess A tier for first-turn info

CANOE

Yes, CANOE was the Wordle answer on May 15, 2023 (Wordle #695).

As an opener, it rules out about 96.2% of possible answers.

Open Solver with CANOE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kəˈnuː/

Noun

A small long and narrow boat, propelled by one or more people (depending on the size of canoe), using single-bladed paddles. The paddlers face in the direction of travel, in either a seated position, or kneeling on the bottom of the boat. Canoes are open on top, and pointed at both ends.

Noun

An oversize, usually older, luxury car.

Verb

To ride or paddle a canoe.

Verb

To split someone's head with a round.

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

Used once

Past Wordle answer: May 15, 2023 (#695).

See the full page for that puzzle: May 15, 2023 (#695).

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

Wordle Observatory · optional

Played this Wordle?

Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds

Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.

See the public data

The Observatory retains the selected puzzle, result, rating, optional Hard Mode answer and a random one-puzzle receipt. It stores no answer word, grid, guesses, account, email, IP-derived ID or reusable player identifier.

How verification and withdrawal work

The answer word and timezone are used transiently to verify this page, then discarded. The receipt prevents duplicate submissions and lets this browser withdraw later; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. Read the full privacy details.

How CANOE performs as a guess

CANOE 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 90.6% of games, misses completely in 9.4%, and leaves about 89 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,048 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.

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.

C___E C in the 1st position and E in the 5th position C__O_ C in the 1st position and O in the 4th position _A__E A in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe CANOE 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.

5.52 Entropy (bits)
89 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
96.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 99% of evaluated openers
0.43 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CANOE 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.

3.60 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#1,048 Rank among openers
Opening with CANOE left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.60 average. It ranks #1,048 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
76
3 guesses
977
4 guesses
1,122
5 guesses
163
6 guesses
14
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

5/5 unique
3 vowels
Common:
AENO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
91%
Green tile
43%
All gray
9%

Example solver route

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

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches CANOE in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

CANOE can come back 124 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

222 answers
215 answers
146 answers
141 answers
105 answers
96 answers
92 answers
81 answers
66 answers
63 answers
63 answers
54 answers
51 answers
51 answers
50 answers
49 answers
41 answers
39 answers
37 answers
30 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
23 answers
22 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3A1N1O1E1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

SPILT SETER STORY SLART SLIER TARDY

Strategy after playing CANOE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CANOE:

9% chance
Suggested:
SPILT
9% chance
Suggested:
SETER
6% chance
Suggested:
STORY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

9.4% →
SPILT 5.73 bits
9.1% →
SETER 5.52 bits
6.1% →
STORY 4.87 bits
5.9% →
SLART 5.50 bits
4.4% →
SLIER 4.40 bits
4.0% →
SLART 4.86 bits
3.9% →
TARDY 3.97 bits
3.4% →
SLART 4.42 bits
2.8% →
STORE 3.84 bits
2.7% →
GLINT 4.63 bits

Research on CANOE

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

Optimal play

Opening with CANOE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.62 guesses and ranks #439 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 CANOE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, at or below the proven-optimal 3.62, 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 KUHNOO.

Rhymes with DEBUT THREW SCREW QUEUE RENEW

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CANOE is a kind of boat or ride.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CANOE sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 3 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 9, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 96 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.2 of 5).

In a sentence

I don't have a canoe.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
We used to have a canoe.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).