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

GNARL

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.4% of possible answers.

Open Solver with GNARL Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /nɑː(ɹ)l/

Noun

A knot in wood; a knurl or a protuberance with twisted grain, on a tree.

Noun

Something resembling a knot in wood, such as in stone or limbs.

Verb

To knot or twist something.

Adjective

Gnarled, knotty, twisted.

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 GNARL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts GNARL 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 86.1% of games, misses completely in 13.9%, and leaves about 133 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,044 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.60 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.

G___L G in the 1st position and L in the 5th position G__R_ G in the 1st position and R in the 4th position _N__L N in the 2nd position and L in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe GNARL 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.

5.03 Entropy (bits)
133 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 85% of evaluated openers
0.92 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GNARL 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.

3.60 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#1,044 Rank among openers
Opening with GNARL left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.60 average. It ranks #1,044 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
66
3 guesses
1,001
4 guesses
1,105
5 guesses
168
6 guesses
12
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

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ALNR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
30%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

GNARL can come back 112 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

329 answers
282 answers
178 answers
149 answers
140 answers
110 answers
80 answers
80 answers
63 answers
56 answers
54 answers
54 answers
44 answers
40 answers
39 answers
39 answers
38 answers
35 answers
34 answers
34 answers
32 answers
23 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2N1A1R1L1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

TOISE CASTE HOISE TAPER SALLE SHITE

Strategy after playing GNARL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GNARL:

14% chance
Suggested:
TOISE
12% chance
Suggested:
TOISE
7% chance
Suggested:
TOISE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.9% →
TOISE 6.11 bits
11.9% →
TOISE 5.51 bits
7.5% →
TOISE 5.21 bits
6.3% →
CASTE 5.27 bits
5.9% →
HOISE 5.35 bits
4.6% →
TAPER 4.60 bits
3.4% →
SALLE 4.51 bits
3.4% →
SHITE 5.01 bits
2.7% →
TOISE 4.30 bits
2.4% →
RIONE 4.39 bits

Research on GNARL

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

Optimal play

Opening with GNARL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,222 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 GNARL can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, at or below the proven-optimal 3.66, 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 NAHRL.

Rhymes with SNARL

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, GNARL is a kind of distortion or turn.

Synonyms knot

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
GNARL sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.4 of 5).

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).