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

CAPON

Yes, CAPON was the Wordle answer on August 26, 2026 (Wordle #1894).

As an opener, it rules out about 93.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with CAPON Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈkeɪpən/

Noun

A cockerel which has been gelded and fattened for the table.

Verb

To castrate; to make a capon of.

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: August 26, 2026 (#1894).

See the full page for that puzzle: August 26, 2026 (#1894).

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

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How CAPON performs as a guess

CAPON 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 81.8% of games, misses completely in 18.2%, and leaves about 164 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,075 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___N C in the 1st position and N in the 5th position C__O_ C in the 1st position and O in the 4th position _A__N A in the 2nd position and N in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe CAPON 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.

4.86 Entropy (bits)
164 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
93.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 75% of evaluated openers
1.09 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CAPON 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
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#1,075 Rank among openers
Opening with CAPON left 1 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 3.60 average. It ranks #1,075 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
60
3 guesses
1,013
4 guesses
1,097
5 guesses
172
6 guesses
11
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
2 vowels
Common:
ANO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
30%
All gray
18%

Example solver route

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

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches CAPON in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

CAPON can come back 107 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

431 answers
271 answers
226 answers
144 answers
136 answers
85 answers
67 answers
59 answers
54 answers
53 answers
48 answers
42 answers
41 answers
39 answers
37 answers
36 answers
32 answers
31 answers
30 answers
26 answers
26 answers
26 answers
23 answers
23 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
13 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3A1P3O1N1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Try next

SLIER SLATE TORSE STIRE STILE SLIME

Strategy after playing CAPON

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CAPON:

18% chance
Suggested:
SLIER
11% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
10% chance
Suggested:
TORSE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.2% →
SLIER 6.05 bits
11.4% →
SLATE 5.67 bits
9.5% →
TORSE 5.29 bits
6.1% →
STIRE 5.12 bits
5.7% →
STILE 4.89 bits
3.6% →
SLIME 5.40 bits
2.8% →
TUILE 4.88 bits
2.5% →
SIRED 4.43 bits
2.3% →
FLORA 4.32 bits
2.2% →
GLARE 4.46 bits

Research on CAPON

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

Optimal play

Opening with CAPON, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.65 guesses and ranks #1,731 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.75 guesses at best and is rank #394 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, at or below the proven-optimal 3.65, 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 KAYPAHN.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CAPON is a kind of chicken or poultry.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CAPON 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.

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).