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

CARON

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈkæɹən/

Noun

háček

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

Etymology

Etymology unknown; first known use is the United States Government Printing Office Style Manual of 1967, where it apparently referred to an inverted caret. Possibly derived from caret after its similar shape (^), and with -on either from macron or as an augmentative after reanalysis of -et as a diminutive.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the second syllable Say it KAHRAWN.

Rhymes with DRAWN SHAWN PRAWN BRAWN MARON

Use CARON in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 95.3% 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 CARON performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CARON 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 86.4% of games, misses completely in 13.6%, and leaves about 113 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #76 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.55 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 CARON 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.

5.32 Entropy (bits)
113 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.3% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CARON 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.

3.55 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#76 Rank among openers
Opening with CARON left 3 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 3.55 average. It ranks #76 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
83
3 guesses
1,084
4 guesses
1,009
5 guesses
159
6 guesses
16

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ANOR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
33%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

CARON can come back 133 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

324 answers
189 answers
169 answers
155 answers
122 answers
117 answers
107 answers
89 answers
56 answers
55 answers
50 answers
48 answers
41 answers
39 answers
34 answers
34 answers
34 answers
31 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
26 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3A1R1O1N1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing CARON

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CARON:

14% chance
Suggested:
STILE
8% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
7% chance
Suggested:
TRIER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.6% →
STILE 6.17 bits
7.9% →
SLATE 5.78 bits
7.1% →
TRIER 5.03 bits
6.5% →
STOLE 5.14 bits
5.1% →
SEITY 5.29 bits
4.9% →
TRADE 4.79 bits
4.5% →
STILE 4.78 bits
3.7% →
SOOTE 4.31 bits
2.3% →
TUILE 4.77 bits
2.3% →
SUITE 4.80 bits

Research on CARON

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

Optimal play

Opening with CARON, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.61 guesses and ranks #271 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.73 guesses at best and is rank #131 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.55, 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
CARON 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 frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).