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

LINEN

Yes, LINEN has been the Wordle answer on August 9, 2021 (Wordle #51) and March 3, 2026 (Wordle #1718).

As an opener, it rules out about 92.3% of possible answers.

Open Solver with LINEN Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈlɪnɪn/

Noun

Thread or cloth made from flax fiber.

Noun

Domestic textiles, such as tablecloths, bedding, towels, underclothes, etc., that are made of linen or linen-like fabrics of cotton or other fibers; linens.

“She put the freshly cleaned linens into the linen closet.”

Adjective

Made from linen cloth or thread.

Adjective

Having the colour linen, light beige.

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 9, 2021 (#51); March 3, 2026 (#1718).

See the full page for each puzzle: August 9, 2021 (#51); March 3, 2026 (#1718).

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

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How verification and withdrawal work

The answer word and timezone are used transiently to verify this page, then discarded. The receipt prevents duplicate submissions and lets this browser withdraw later; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. Read the full privacy details.

How LINEN performs as a guess

LINEN 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 81.5% of games, misses completely in 18.5%, and leaves about 183 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,764 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.76 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___N L in the 1st position and N in the 5th position L__E_ L in the 1st position and E in the 4th position _I__N I in the 2nd position and N in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe LINEN 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.

4.60 Entropy (bits)
183 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
92.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 59% of evaluated openers
1.35 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How LINEN 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.

3.76 Avg guesses
99.79% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#9,764 Rank among openers
Opening with LINEN left 5 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 3.76 average. It ranks #9,764 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
52
3 guesses
783
4 guesses
1,220
5 guesses
267
6 guesses
26
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EILN

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
31%
All gray
18%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S I L E N
E V O K E
L I N E N

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches LINEN in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

LINEN can come back 87 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

440 answers
339 answers
190 answers
141 answers
128 answers
119 answers
84 answers
77 answers
75 answers
66 answers
51 answers
48 answers
47 answers
37 answers
37 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
19 answers
19 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

L1I1N1E1N1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Try next

ROAST STARE SLATE SHART TRACE STILL

Strategy after playing LINEN

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing LINEN:

19% chance
Suggested:
ROAST
14% chance
Suggested:
STARE
8% chance
Suggested:
ROAST

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.5% →
ROAST 6.05 bits
14.3% →
STARE 5.65 bits
8.0% →
ROAST 5.05 bits
5.9% →
ROAST 4.45 bits
5.4% →
ROAST 5.24 bits
5.0% →
SLATE 4.65 bits
3.5% →
ROAST 5.05 bits
3.2% →
SHART 4.31 bits
3.2% →
TRACE 4.38 bits
2.8% →
STILL 4.14 bits

Research on LINEN

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

Optimal play

Opening with LINEN, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,318 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 LINEN can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.76, 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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it LIHNUHN.

Rhymes with NINON

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, LINEN is a kind of material or paper.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
LINEN sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 4 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.

In a sentence

I want to buy new bed linen.
© tatoeba.org contributor Lemmih (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I bought a set of table linen.
© tatoeba.org contributor _undertoad (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.