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

CREEL

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kɹiːl/

Noun

A woven basket, especially a wicker basket.

Noun

A bar or set of bars with skewers for holding paying-off bobbins, as in the roving machine, throstle, and mule.

Verb

To place (fish) in a creel.

Verb

To wrench or sprain.

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

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

Past Wordle answer

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

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

How CREEL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CREEL 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 82.1% of games, misses completely in 17.9%, and leaves about 150 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,936 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.65 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 CREEL 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.

4.96 Entropy (bits)
150 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 81% of evaluated openers
0.99 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CREEL 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.

3.65 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#3,936 Rank among openers
Opening with CREEL 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 3.65 average. It ranks #3,936 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
56
3 guesses
938
4 guesses
1,139
5 guesses
203
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ELR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
38%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

CREEL can come back 100 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

426 answers
199 answers
193 answers
175 answers
106 answers
99 answers
95 answers
95 answers
87 answers
53 answers
47 answers
47 answers
42 answers
34 answers
31 answers
29 answers
28 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3R1E1E1L1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing CREEL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CREEL:

18% chance
Suggested:
SAINT
8% chance
Suggested:
SAINT
8% chance
Suggested:
SALON

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.9%
SAINT 6.17 bits
8.4%
SAINT 5.42 bits
8.1%
SALON 4.88 bits
7.4%
ROAST 5.18 bits
4.5%
SAINT 4.74 bits
4.2%
SABLE 4.49 bits
4.0%
ROAST 3.61 bits
4.0%
SAINT 4.99 bits
3.7%
REAST 4.56 bits
2.2%
SAINT 4.64 bits

Research on CREEL

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

Optimal play

Opening with CREEL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,606 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.84 guesses at best and is rank #2,482 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.65, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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 KREEL.

Rhymes with STEEL WHEEL IDEAL STEAL KNEEL

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CREEL is a kind of basket.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CREEL 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.

In a sentence

A well-used creel might better not be picked as a picnic hamper.
© tatoeba.org contributor halfb1t (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).