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

CLEAN

Yes, CLEAN was the Wordle answer on November 26, 2022 (Wordle #525).

As an opener, it rules out about 95.2% of possible answers.

Open Solver with CLEAN Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kliːn/[kʰl̥iːn][kʰl̥ĩːn]

Adjective

Free of dirt, filth, or impurities (extraneous matter); not dirty, filthy, or soiled.

“Are these dishes clean? Your room is finally clean! For a baby, happiness is a full bottle and a clean diaper.”

Adjective

Free of contamination, (unwanted) germs, infection, or disease.

“Insert a clean swab into your nose.”

Noun

A removal of dirt.

“This place needs a clean.”

Noun

The first part of the event clean and jerk in which the weight is brought from the ground to the shoulders.

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: November 26, 2022 (#525).

See the full page for that puzzle: November 26, 2022 (#525).

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

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How CLEAN performs as a guess

CLEAN 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 88.0% of games, misses completely in 12.0%, and leaves about 113 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #508 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.58 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__A_ C in the 1st position and A in the 4th position _L__N L in the 2nd position and N in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe CLEAN 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.

5.33 Entropy (bits)
113 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
95.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 96% of evaluated openers
0.61 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CLEAN 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.

3.58 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#508 Rank among openers
Opening with CLEAN left 3 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 3.58 average. It ranks #508 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
81
3 guesses
995
4 guesses
1,107
5 guesses
152
6 guesses
15
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:
AELN

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
30%
All gray
12%

Example solver route

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

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches CLEAN in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

CLEAN can come back 126 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

284 answers
267 answers
177 answers
138 answers
110 answers
100 answers
87 answers
76 answers
60 answers
59 answers
56 answers
52 answers
52 answers
36 answers
33 answers
32 answers
31 answers
29 answers
28 answers
25 answers
24 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3L1E1A1N1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Try next

SHORT TORSE SATYR TARSE YOUNG SILLY

Strategy after playing CLEAN

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CLEAN:

12% chance
Suggested:
SHORT
11% chance
Suggested:
TORSE
7% chance
Suggested:
SATYR

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

12.0% →
SHORT 5.99 bits
11.2% →
TORSE 5.39 bits
7.5% →
SATYR 5.02 bits
5.8% →
TARSE 4.71 bits
4.6% →
YOUNG 4.85 bits
4.2% →
SILLY 4.81 bits
3.7% →
SIREE 4.73 bits
3.2% →
SIREE 4.32 bits
2.5% →
GIANT 4.25 bits
2.5% →
SAULT 4.12 bits

Research on CLEAN

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

Optimal play

Opening with CLEAN, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,074 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 CLEAN can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.58, at or below the proven-optimal 3.64, 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

One syllable Say it KLEEN.

Rhymes with GREEN SCENE QUEEN SHEEN TWEEN

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CLEAN is a kind of weightlifting or change.

Synonyms WHITE LIGHT CLEAR pick fair FRESH

Opposites DIRTY unclean full difficult

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CLEAN sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 93 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A1); among the first words English learners study.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 4, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 70 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.7 of 5).

In a sentence

We have to clean up.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I don't like to clean.
© 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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).