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

CLINE

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /klaɪn/

Noun

A gradation in a character or phenotype within a species, deme, or other systematic group.

Noun

Any graduated continuum.

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

Etymology

From Ancient Greek κλῑ́νω (klī́nō, “to lean, incline”). Introduced by English evolutionary biologist and eugenicist Julian Huxley in 1938 after British mycologist John Ramsbottom suggested the term.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it KLYN.

Rhymes with SHINE SPINE STEIN ALIGN SWINE

In a sentence

As one moves further south they enter a different cline.
© tatoeba.org contributor letsgolanguages (CC BY 2.0 FR)
There is a gradual cline of decreasing size to the northward.
© tatoeba.org contributor remline (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use CLINE 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 CLINE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CLINE 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 86.2% of games, misses completely in 13.8%, and leaves about 111 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #168 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.56 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 CLINE 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.

5.38 Entropy (bits)
111 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.3% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CLINE 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.

3.56 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#168 Rank among openers
Opening with CLINE left 2 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 3.56 average. It ranks #168 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
77
3 guesses
1,054
4 guesses
1,056
5 guesses
148
6 guesses
17

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EILN

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
41%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

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

329 answers
226 answers
163 answers
118 answers
108 answers
91 answers
76 answers
70 answers
65 answers
62 answers
52 answers
50 answers
49 answers
44 answers
39 answers
38 answers
37 answers
34 answers
33 answers
29 answers
29 answers
25 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3L1I1N1E1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing CLINE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CLINE:

14% chance
Suggested:
ROAST
9% chance
Suggested:
ROAST
7% chance
Suggested:
ROAST

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.8% →
ROAST 6.06 bits
9.5% →
ROAST 5.24 bits
6.8% →
ROAST 5.30 bits
4.9% →
SALLY 5.08 bits
4.5% →
ROAST 5.26 bits
3.8% →
REAST 4.53 bits
3.2% →
MASON 4.94 bits
2.9% →
OATER 4.41 bits
2.7% →
ROAST 4.93 bits
2.6% →
ROAST 4.51 bits

Research on CLINE

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

Optimal play

Opening with CLINE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.60 guesses and ranks #222 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 #170 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.56, at or below the proven-optimal 3.60, 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
CLINE 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).