EMBER
Yes, EMBER was the Wordle answer on January 28, 2024 (Wordle #953).
As an opener, it rules out about 88.1% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈɛm.bə//ˈɛm.bɚ//ˈɪm.bɚ/
- Noun
-
A piece of coal or wood glowing by heat; a hot coal.
- Noun
-
Smoldering ash.
- Adjective
-
Making a circuit of the year or the seasons; recurring in each quarter of the year, as certain religious days set apart for fasting and prayer.
“ember fasts”
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 28, 2024 (#953).
See the full page for that puzzle: January 28, 2024 (#953).
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 EMBER performs as a guess
EMBER 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 72.6% of games, misses completely in 27.4%, and leaves about 282 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,836 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.76 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 EMBER 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 EMBER 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 EMBER in 5 guesses. See the trap-family guide for similar endgames.
Feedback distribution
EMBER can come back 75 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 EMBER; 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 EMBER
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to EMBER.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing EMBER:
Research on EMBER
Game-tree analysis and word research for EMBER, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with EMBER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,686 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 EMBER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.76, at or below the proven-optimal 3.78, 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 EHMBUR.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, EMBER is a kind of fragment.
Synonyms coal
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- EMBER sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.7 of 5).
In a sentence
He caught ember, his fingers were burned.
He touched ember, his fingers burned.
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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).