EMPTY
Yes, EMPTY was the Wordle answer on August 10, 2023 (Wordle #782).
As an opener, it rules out about 89.7% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈɛm(p).ti/[ˈɛm(p).tʰi]/ˈɪm(p).ti/
- Adjective
-
Devoid of content; containing nothing or nobody; vacant.
“an empty purse”
- Adjective
-
Containing no elements (as of a string, array, or set), opposed to being null (having no valid value).
- Verb
-
To make empty; to remove the contents of.
“to empty a well or a cistern”
- Verb
-
Of a river, duct, etc: to drain or flow toward an ultimate destination.
“Salmon River empties on the W shore about 2 miles below Bear River.”
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: August 10, 2023 (#782).
See the full page for that puzzle: August 10, 2023 (#782).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
Wordle Observatory · optional
Played this Wordle?
Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds
Wordle Observatory · optional
Played this Wordle?
Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds
Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.
See the public dataThank you. Your result now helps describe this puzzle.
See what the public sample says →How EMPTY performs as a guess
EMPTY 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 81.6% of games, misses completely in 18.4%, and leaves about 244 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,283 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.75 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 EMPTY 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 EMPTY 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 EMPTY in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
EMPTY can come back 85 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 EMPTY; 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 EMPTY
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to EMPTY.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing EMPTY:
Research on EMPTY
Game-tree analysis and word research for EMPTY, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with EMPTY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #7,967 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.88 guesses at best and is rank #3,695 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.75, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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 EHMPTEE.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, EMPTY is a kind of container or change.
Synonyms abandon void hollow discharge evacuate vacate
Opposites full fill meaningful thirsty
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- EMPTY sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 39 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Learner level
- Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A2); among the first words English learners study.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 5, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 47 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.1 of 5).
In a sentence
We have to empty it.
It was empty in there.
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).