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

GUILE

Yes, GUILE was the Wordle answer on December 2, 2024 (Wordle #1262).

As an opener, it rules out about 94.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with GUILE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ɡaɪl/

Noun

Astuteness often marked by a certain sense of cunning or artful deception.

Noun

Deceptiveness, deceit, fraud, duplicity, dishonesty.

Verb

To deceive, beguile, bewile.

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 2, 2024 (#1262).

See the full page for that puzzle: December 2, 2024 (#1262).

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

Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.

See the public data

The Observatory retains the selected puzzle, result, rating, optional Hard Mode answer and a random one-puzzle receipt. It stores no answer word, grid, guesses, account, email, IP-derived ID or reusable player identifier.

How verification and withdrawal work

The answer word and timezone are used transiently to verify this page, then discarded. The receipt prevents duplicate submissions and lets this browser withdraw later; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. Read the full privacy details.

How GUILE performs as a guess

GUILE 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 85.0% of games, misses completely in 15.0%, and leaves about 140 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,231 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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___E G in the 1st position and E in the 5th position G__L_ G in the 1st position and L in the 4th position _U__E U in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe GUILE 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.

5.08 Entropy (bits)
140 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
94.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 87% of evaluated openers
0.87 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GUILE 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#3,231 Rank among openers
Opening with GUILE left 1 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 3.64 average. It ranks #3,231 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
73
3 guesses
933
4 guesses
1,122
5 guesses
211
6 guesses
13
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
3 vowels
Common:
EILU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
85%
Green tile
40%
All gray
15%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I N G
G U I L E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches GUILE in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

GUILE can come back 115 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

356 answers
304 answers
149 answers
146 answers
124 answers
107 answers
99 answers
83 answers
70 answers
59 answers
48 answers
42 answers
41 answers
34 answers
33 answers
29 answers
28 answers
24 answers
24 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2U1I1L1E1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

SNORT ROAST SATIN COAST PETAL CRUST

Strategy after playing GUILE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GUILE:

15% chance
Suggested:
SNORT
13% chance
Suggested:
ROAST
6% chance
Suggested:
ROAST

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.0% →
SNORT 5.73 bits
12.8% →
ROAST 5.31 bits
6.3% →
ROAST 5.17 bits
6.1% →
SATIN 5.02 bits
5.2% →
COAST 5.05 bits
4.5% →
PETAL 4.59 bits
4.2% →
CRUST 5.20 bits
3.5% →
SHART 4.86 bits
2.9% →
SHART 3.97 bits
2.5% →
DINER 4.37 bits

Research on GUILE

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

Optimal play

Opening with GUILE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,348 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 GUILE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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 GYL.

Rhymes with WHILE STYLE SMILE AISLE STILE

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, GUILE is a kind of intelligence or dishonesty.

Synonyms CRAFT cunning

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
GUILE 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.

In a sentence

I refuse to be taken in by her guile.
© tatoeba.org contributor darinmex (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).