HYENA
Yes, HYENA was the Wordle answer on December 8, 2024 (Wordle #1268).
As an opener, it rules out about 93.7% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /haɪˈiːnə/
- Noun
-
Any of the medium-sized to large feliform carnivores of the family Hyaenidae, native to Africa and Asia and noted for the sound similar to laughter which they can make if excited.
- Noun
-
A man that performs ritualized sex acts with recently widowed women and menarchal girls.
Alternative forms: hyaena, hyæna, hyen
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: December 8, 2024 (#1268).
See the full page for that puzzle: December 8, 2024 (#1268).
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 HYENA performs as a guess
HYENA 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 89.1% of games, misses completely in 10.9%, and leaves about 150 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,679 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.73 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 HYENA 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 HYENA 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 HYENA in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
HYENA can come back 91 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 HYENA; 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 HYENA
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to HYENA.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing HYENA:
Research on HYENA
Game-tree analysis and word research for HYENA, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with HYENA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,213 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 HYENA can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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
Three syllables, stress on the second syllable Say it HYEENUH.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, HYENA is a kind of canine.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- HYENA 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 sight (3.8 of 5).
In a sentence
It could be a hyena.
It was just a big hyena.
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).