GROAN
Yes, GROAN was the Wordle answer on August 6, 2025 (Wordle #1509).
As an opener, it rules out about 94.3% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈɡɹəʊ̯n//ˈɡɹɵ̞ʊ̯n//ˈɡɹoʊ̯n/
- Noun
-
A low, mournful sound uttered in pain or grief.
“let out a groan”
- Noun
-
A low, guttural sound uttered in frustration, disapproval, or ecstasy.
- Verb
-
To make a groan.
“We groaned at his awful jokes.”
- Verb
-
To seemingly creak under the strain of being heavily laden.
Alternative forms: groane, grane, grain, graen
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 6, 2025 (#1509).
See the full page for that puzzle: August 6, 2025 (#1509).
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 GROAN performs as a guess
GROAN 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 85.3% of games, misses completely in 14.7%, and leaves about 135 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,439 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.61 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 GROAN 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 GROAN 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 GROAN in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
GROAN can come back 119 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 GROAN; 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 GROAN
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to GROAN.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing GROAN:
Research on GROAN
Game-tree analysis and word research for GROAN, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with GROAN, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,092 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 GROAN can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.61, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, GROAN is a kind of communication or utter.
Synonyms moan
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- GROAN sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sound (4.1 of 5).
In a sentence
What was that groan for?
Tom let out a groan.
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).