INCEL
INCEL is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈɪn(ˌ)sɛl/
- Noun
-
A member of an online subculture of people (mostly men) who define themselves as unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one.
- Noun
-
An individual who is not sexually active despite having such a desire.
- Adjective
-
Not having sexual relations despite wishing to.
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
Blend of involuntary + celibate. Coined by "Alana" in 1997 on an online forum (originally as invcel). Came to widespread usage in the mid-2010s, chiefly online, but now more widespread.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
In a sentence
Tom was looking at some incel forum.
Tom's incel rant didn't go over well.
Use INCEL in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 94.6% 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
NoThe solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.
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 INCEL performs as a guess
Wordle accepts INCEL 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 86.2% of games, misses completely in 13.8%, and leaves about 129 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,944 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 INCEL 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 INCEL 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
Feedback distribution
INCEL can come back 107 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 INCEL; 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 INCEL
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to INCEL.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing INCEL:
Research on INCEL
Game-tree analysis and word research for INCEL, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with INCEL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.65 guesses and ranks #1,695 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.77 guesses at best and is rank #605 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, 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
- INCEL sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.
Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).