CRAWL
Yes, CRAWL was the Wordle answer on January 10, 2025 (Wordle #1301).
As an opener, it rules out about 93.4% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /kɹɔːl//kɹoːl//kɹaːl/
- Verb
-
To move by dragging one's body along or close to a surface, like a worm or insect, or on one's hands and knees, like a human baby.
“Clutching my wounded side, I crawled back to the trench.”
- Verb
-
To move or progress slowly or laboriously, or with great difficulty (for example due to feebleness) or frequent stops.
“The rush-hour traffic crawled around the bypass.”
- Noun
-
The act of moving slowly on hands and knees, etc.
- Noun
-
The act of sequentially visiting a series of similar establishments (i.e., a bar crawl).
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: January 10, 2025 (#1301).
See the full page for that puzzle: January 10, 2025 (#1301).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How CRAWL performs as a guess
CRAWL 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 82.1% of games, misses completely in 17.9%, and leaves about 157 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,481 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe CRAWL 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How CRAWL 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches CRAWL in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
CRAWL can come back 94 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for CRAWL; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing CRAWL
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to CRAWL.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing CRAWL:
Research on CRAWL
Game-tree analysis and word research for CRAWL, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with CRAWL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #4,477 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.80 guesses at best and is rank #1,316 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.69, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, CRAWL is a kind of move or stroke.
Synonyms CREEP crawling creeping cringe fawn
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- CRAWL sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 6 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Learner level
- Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 3, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 75 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.4 of 5).
In a sentence
Can you do the crawl?
I don't know how to do the crawl.
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).