Accepted guess Not a possible answer C tier for first-turn info

HAVEL

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Proper noun

A river in Germany.

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 HAVEL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HAVEL 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 84.1% of games, misses completely in 15.9%, and leaves about 152 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,853 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.74 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe HAVEL 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.

4.78 Entropy (bits)
152 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 70% of evaluated openers
1.17 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HAVEL 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.

3.74 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#8,853 Rank among openers
Opening with HAVEL solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.74 average. It ranks #8,853 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
61
3 guesses
793
4 guesses
1,218
5 guesses
268
6 guesses
14
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
2 vowels
Common:
AEL

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
31%
All gray
16%

Feedback distribution

HAVEL can come back 94 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

377 answers
269 answers
175 answers
147 answers
143 answers
128 answers
125 answers
120 answers
76 answers
72 answers
54 answers
46 answers
41 answers
38 answers
34 answers
31 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
25 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4A1V4E1L1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing HAVEL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HAVEL:

16% chance
Suggested:
SNORT
11% chance
Suggested:
RINSE
7% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.9%
SNORT 5.86 bits
11.3%
RINSE 5.36 bits
7.4%
TRAIN 5.38 bits
6.2%
SENOR 4.41 bits
6.0%
SOILY 4.69 bits
5.4%
TONEY 4.03 bits
5.3%
TRADE 4.81 bits
5.1%
TORCH 5.16 bits
3.2%
TOILE 4.31 bits
3.0%
PLANT 4.19 bits

Research on HAVEL

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

Optimal play

Opening with HAVEL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,495 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 HAVEL can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.74; proven optimal play reaches 3.72. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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 first syllable Say it HAVUHL.

Rhymes with RAVEL GAVEL

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
HAVEL 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).