ELDER
Yes, ELDER was the Wordle answer on February 7, 2022 (Wordle #233).
As an opener, it rules out about 92.3% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈeldə//ˈɛldə//ˈɛldɚ/
- Adjective
-
comparative degree of old: older, greater than another in age or seniority.
“It's typical for elder married couples to live in retirement homes.”
- Adjective
-
Closer to the dealer, i.e. receiving cards earlier than others.
- Noun
-
A leader or senior member of a tribe or community, often of considerable age, respected as an authority figure, especially in a counselling, consultative, or ceremonial role.
“We were presented to the village elder.”
- Noun
-
An old person.
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: February 7, 2022 (#233).
See the full page for that puzzle: February 7, 2022 (#233).
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 ELDER performs as a guess
ELDER 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 80.0% of games, misses completely in 20.0%, and leaves about 183 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,488 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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 ELDER 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 ELDER 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 ELDER in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
ELDER can come back 98 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 ELDER; 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 ELDER
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to ELDER.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing ELDER:
Research on ELDER
Game-tree analysis and word research for ELDER, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with ELDER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,893 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 ELDER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it EHLDUR.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, ELDER is a kind of actor or bush.
Synonyms OLDER senior
Opposites junior
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- ELDER sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 11 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 8, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 62 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.9 of 5).
In a sentence
She is my elder sister.
I am your elder sister.
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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).