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

IVORY

Yes, IVORY has been the Wordle answer on August 17, 2021 (Wordle #59) and March 27, 2026 (Wordle #1742).

As an opener, it rules out about 91.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with IVORY Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈaɪv(ə)ɹi/

Noun

The hard white form of dentin which forms the tusks of elephants, walruses and other animals.

Noun

A creamy white color, the color of ivory.

Adjective

Made of ivory.

Adjective

Resembling or having the colour of ivory.

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 2 times

Past Wordle answer: August 17, 2021 (#59); March 27, 2026 (#1742).

See the full page for each puzzle: August 17, 2021 (#59); March 27, 2026 (#1742).

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

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How IVORY performs as a guess

IVORY 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 79.2% of games, misses completely in 20.8%, and leaves about 210 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,189 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.77 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.

I___Y I in the 1st position and Y in the 5th position I__R_ I in the 1st position and R in the 4th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe IVORY 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.

4.30 Entropy (bits)
210 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
91.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 38% of evaluated openers
1.65 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How IVORY 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.

3.77 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#10,189 Rank among openers
Opening with IVORY left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.77 average. It ranks #10,189 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
41
3 guesses
801
4 guesses
1,200
5 guesses
286
6 guesses
24
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:
IOR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
31%
All gray
21%

Example solver route

R O A T E
G R I N D
C H O I R
I V O R Y

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches IVORY in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

IVORY can come back 73 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

493 answers
283 answers
264 answers
149 answers
146 answers
131 answers
116 answers
103 answers
58 answers
57 answers
57 answers
51 answers
46 answers
36 answers
30 answers
25 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

I1V4O1R1Y4
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Try next

SLATE SETAE SLANT CONTE TRIED TORSE

Strategy after playing IVORY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing IVORY:

21% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
12% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
11% chance
Suggested:
SETAE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.8% →
SLATE 6.40 bits
11.9% →
SLATE 5.43 bits
11.1% →
SETAE 5.37 bits
6.3% →
SLANT 4.74 bits
6.1% →
CONTE 5.17 bits
5.5% →
TRIED 4.53 bits
4.9% →
SLANT 4.92 bits
4.3% →
TORSE 4.33 bits
2.4% →
SLANT 3.50 bits
2.4% →
STADE 4.57 bits

Research on IVORY

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

Optimal play

Opening with IVORY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.81 guesses and ranks #11,163 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.97 guesses at best and is rank #5,633 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.77, at or below the proven-optimal 3.81, 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 first syllable Say it YVUREE.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, IVORY is a kind of stuff or white.

Synonyms bone PEARL

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
IVORY sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 7 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B1); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 9, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 73 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.8 of 5).

In a sentence

I see an ivory cross.
© tatoeba.org contributor araneo (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Traffic in ivory is illegal.
© tatoeba.org contributor Dejo (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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).