5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess F tier for first-turn info

EXCEL

Yes, EXCEL was the Wordle answer on December 22, 2022 (Wordle #551).

As an opener, it rules out about 86.5% of possible answers.

Open Solver with EXCEL Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ɪkˈsɛl//ɛkˈsɛl/

Verb

To surpass someone or something; to be better or do better than someone or something.

“I excelled everyone else with my exam results.”

Verb

To be much better than others.

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: December 22, 2022 (#551).

See the full page for that puzzle: December 22, 2022 (#551).

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

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How EXCEL performs as a guess

EXCEL 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 70.7% of games, misses completely in 29.3%, and leaves about 321 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,109 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.85 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

E___L E in the 1st position and L in the 5th position E__E_ E in the 1st position and E in the 4th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in EXCEL.

First-turn measures

All four describe EXCEL 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.

3.76 Entropy (bits)
321 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
86.5% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 13% of evaluated openers
2.19 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How EXCEL 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.

3.85 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#13,109 Rank among openers
Opening with EXCEL left 4 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.85 average. It ranks #13,109 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
42
3 guesses
646
4 guesses
1,313
5 guesses
321
6 guesses
27
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:
EL

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
71%
Green tile
23%
All gray
29%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S I L E N
B E E C H
E X C E L

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches EXCEL in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

EXCEL can come back 64 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

695 answers
365 answers
224 answers
185 answers
146 answers
124 answers
79 answers
77 answers
56 answers
49 answers
43 answers
35 answers
26 answers
22 answers
22 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

E1X8C3E1L1
Total: 14 points

Words With Friends

Total: 16 points

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

Try next

ROAST IRATE ALLOT CHAIN STALE CARSE

Strategy after playing EXCEL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing EXCEL:

29% chance
Suggested:
ROAST
15% chance
Suggested:
IRATE
9% chance
Suggested:
ALLOT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

29.3% →
ROAST 6.05 bits
15.4% →
IRATE 5.45 bits
9.4% →
ALLOT 5.02 bits
7.8% →
CHAIN 5.26 bits
6.1% →
ROAST 4.42 bits
5.2% →
STALE 4.76 bits
3.3% →
ROAST 4.66 bits
3.2% →
CARSE 4.87 bits
2.4% →
CAULK 4.13 bits
2.1% →
STEER 4.17 bits

Research on EXCEL

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

Optimal play

Opening with EXCEL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.86 guesses and ranks #12,802 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.99 guesses at best and is rank #6,095 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.85, at or below the proven-optimal 3.86, 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 second syllable Say it IHKSEHL.

Rhymes with HOTEL SMELL SHELL SPELL INTEL

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, EXCEL is a kind of differ.

Synonyms surpass

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
EXCEL sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 5 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 10, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 43 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.8 of 5).

In a sentence

Using Excel is not easy.
© tatoeba.org contributor Hybrid (CC BY 2.0 FR)
We excel at killing one another.
© tatoeba.org contributor Aghanim (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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).