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

CRANE

Yes, CRANE was the Wordle answer on June 21, 2023 (Wordle #732).

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kɹeɪn//kɹæɪn//kɾen/

Noun

Any bird of the family Gruidae, large birds with long legs and a long neck which is extended during flight.

Noun

A mechanical lifting machine or device, often used for lifting heavy loads for industrial or construction purposes.

Verb

To extend (one's neck).

Verb

To raise or lower with, or as if with, a crane.

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

Etymology

From Middle English crane, from Old English cran (“crane”), from Proto-West Germanic *kran, *kranō, from Proto-Germanic *kranô (“crane”), from Proto-Indo-European *gerh₂- (“to cry hoarsely”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it KRAYN.

Rhymes with TRAIN BRAIN PLANE CHAIN SPAIN

In a sentence

I can operate a crane.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (CC BY 2.0 FR)
It was the last crane she ever made.
© tatoeba.org contributor orcrist (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use CRANE in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 96.5% of possible answers.

Open Solver with CRANE Open Word Finder

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: June 21, 2023 (#732).

See the full page for that puzzle: June 21, 2023 (#732).

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

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CRANE in Connections

2 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.

How CRANE performs as a guess

CRANE is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 88.5% of games, misses completely in 11.5%, and leaves about 82 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #77 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.
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__N_ C in the 1st position and N in the 4th position _R__E R in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position CR_NE C in the 1st position, R in the 2nd position, N in the 4th position, and E in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe CRANE 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.

5.73 Entropy (bits)
82 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
96.5% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CRANE 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
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#77 Rank among openers
Opening with CRANE left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.55 average. It ranks #77 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
99
3 guesses
1,054
4 guesses
1,014
5 guesses
171
6 guesses
13

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AENR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
43%
All gray
12%

Example solver route

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

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches CRANE in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

CRANE can come back 142 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

274 answers
141 answers
130 answers
127 answers
106 answers
93 answers
68 answers
62 answers
58 answers
57 answers
57 answers
53 answers
53 answers
51 answers
50 answers
47 answers
46 answers
45 answers
40 answers
28 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
20 answers
20 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3R1A1N1E1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

MOULT SALTY SLEET SEITY SOILY TORUS

Strategy after playing CRANE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CRANE:

11% chance
Suggested:
MOULT
6% chance
Suggested:
SALTY
5% chance
Suggested:
SLEET

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

11.5% →
MOULT 5.58 bits
5.9% →
SALTY 5.10 bits
5.5% →
SLEET 5.34 bits
5.3% →
SEITY 3.96 bits
4.4% →
SOILY 4.81 bits
3.9% →
TORUS 5.09 bits
2.9% →
SOILY 4.14 bits
2.6% →
OLDEN 4.26 bits
2.4% →
SOULY 4.24 bits
2.4% →
UNITY 4.60 bits

Research on CRANE

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

Optimal play

Opening with CRANE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.58 guesses and ranks #31 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 CRANE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.55, at or below the proven-optimal 3.58, 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
CRANE sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 8 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.0 of 5).

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).