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

LIGHT

Yes, LIGHT was the Wordle answer on January 31, 2022 (Wordle #226).

As an opener, it rules out about 91.2% of possible answers.

Open Solver with LIGHT Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /laɪt/[laɪt][lɑjt]

Noun

Electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range visible to the human eye (about 400–750 nanometers): visible light.

“As you can see, this spacious dining-room gets a lot of light in the mornings.”

Noun

Electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range visible to the human eye or in nearby ranges (infrared or ultraviolet radiation).

“black light”

Verb

To start (a fire).

“We lit the fire to get some heat.”

Verb

To set fire to; to set burning.

“She lit her last match.”

Alternative forms: lite, lighte, lyght, lyghte

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 once

Past Wordle answer: January 31, 2022 (#226).

See the full page for that puzzle: January 31, 2022 (#226).

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

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How LIGHT performs as a guess

LIGHT 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 77.1% of games, misses completely in 22.9%, and leaves about 208 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,178 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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.

L___T L in the 1st position and T in the 5th position L__H_ L in the 1st position and H in the 4th position _I__T I in the 2nd position and T in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe LIGHT 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.

4.48 Entropy (bits)
208 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
91.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 51% of evaluated openers
1.46 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How LIGHT 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.

3.66 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#4,178 Rank among openers
Opening with LIGHT left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.66 average. It ranks #4,178 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
48
3 guesses
942
4 guesses
1,146
5 guesses
200
6 guesses
16
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
1 vowels
Common:
ILT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
77%
Green tile
24%
All gray
23%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S H U N T
A W F U L
L I G H T

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches LIGHT in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

LIGHT can come back 90 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

544 answers
264 answers
177 answers
158 answers
145 answers
103 answers
92 answers
77 answers
74 answers
66 answers
51 answers
43 answers
43 answers
41 answers
34 answers
34 answers
31 answers
29 answers
29 answers
26 answers
24 answers
21 answers
14 answers
14 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

L1I1G2H4T1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Try next

SOARE CRANE CORSE CARSE DANSE SLADE

Strategy after playing LIGHT

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing LIGHT:

23% chance
Suggested:
SOARE
11% chance
Suggested:
SOARE
7% chance
Suggested:
SOARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.9% →
SOARE 6.10 bits
11.1% →
SOARE 5.22 bits
7.5% →
SOARE 5.72 bits
6.7% →
CRANE 5.32 bits
6.1% →
CORSE 5.76 bits
4.3% →
CARSE 5.31 bits
3.9% →
SOARE 5.18 bits
3.2% →
DANSE 4.62 bits
3.1% →
SLADE 4.63 bits
2.8% →
ROATE 4.71 bits

Research on LIGHT

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

Optimal play

Opening with LIGHT, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #5,134 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 LIGHT can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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

One syllable Say it LYT.

Rhymes with RIGHT MIGHT NIGHT WHITE QUITE

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, LIGHT is a kind of ethics or radiation.

Synonyms SHORT fire easy CLEAR fall CLEAN

Opposites HEAVY dark well serious

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
LIGHT sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 214 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A1); among the first words English learners study.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 5, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 71 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.6 of 5).

In a sentence

The light is a light.
© tatoeba.org contributor Lake (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Do you have a light?
© tatoeba.org contributor virgil (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).