GROPE
GROPE is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ɡɹəʊp//ɡɹoʊp/
- Verb
-
To search or attempt to find something in the dark, or, as a blind person, by feeling; to move about hesitatingly, as in darkness or obscurity; to feel one's way, as with the hands, when one can not see.
- Verb
-
To touch (another person) closely and (especially) sexually.
“The parents found the couple kissing and groping.”
- Noun
-
An act of groping, especially sexually.
“The old man tried to get a quick grope of the young lady on the train.”
- Noun
-
An iron fitting of a medieval cart wheel.
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English gropien, from Old English grāpian, related to grīpan (whence English gripe); compare also grip.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it GROHP.
Rhymes with SCOPE SLOPE ELOPE SHOPE
Related meanings
Synonyms fumble
In a sentence
Santiago tried to grope Melissa's chest.
Use GROPE in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 94.1% of possible answers.
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
No completed appearanceNo appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.
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 GROPE performs as a guess
GROPE is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 83.3% of games, misses completely in 16.7%, and leaves about 140 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,755 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 GROPE 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 GROPE 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 GROPE in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
GROPE can come back 113 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 GROPE; 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 GROPE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to GROPE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing GROPE:
Research on GROPE
Game-tree analysis and word research for GROPE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with GROPE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.65 guesses and ranks #1,637 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.78 guesses at best and is rank #979 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.61, at or below the proven-optimal 3.65, 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.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- GROPE sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than 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 touch (3.9 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).