LANCE
Yes, LANCE was the Wordle answer on February 26, 2026 (Wordle #1713).
As an opener, it rules out about 96.0% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /lɑːns//læns/
- Noun
-
A weapon of war, consisting of a long shaft or handle and a steel blade or head; a spear carried by horsemen.
- Noun
-
A wooden spear, sometimes hollow, used in jousting or tilting, designed to shatter on impact with the opposing knight’s armour.
- Verb
-
To pierce with a lance, or with any similar weapon.
- Verb
-
To open with a lancet; to prick or cut open with a sharp instrument; to pierce.
“to lance a vein or an abscess”
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: February 26, 2026 (#1713).
See the full page for that puzzle: February 26, 2026 (#1713).
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 LANCE performs as a guess
LANCE 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 88.0% of games, misses completely in 12.0%, and leaves about 94 possible answers on average.
In the current bounded six-turn policy, it ranks #23 of 182 evaluated openers; exact misses rank first, then average guesses among wins.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #103 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.56 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 LANCE 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 LANCE 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 LANCE in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
LANCE can come back 129 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 LANCE; 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 LANCE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to LANCE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing LANCE:
Research on LANCE
Game-tree analysis and word research for LANCE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with LANCE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.58 guesses and ranks #43 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 LANCE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.56, at or below the proven-optimal 3.58, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, LANCE is a kind of arm or implement.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- LANCE sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 9 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 B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 10, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 59 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.2 of 5).
In a sentence
The tongue wounds more than a lance.
Passenger Lance Murray, please report to the nearest information desk.
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).