NIGHT
Yes, NIGHT was the Wordle answer on July 12, 2022 (Wordle #388).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈnɑjt//ˈnɑjʔ//ˈnaɪ̯t/
- Noun
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The time when the Sun is below the horizon when the sky is dark.
“Most animals are awake at day and sleep at night.”
- Noun
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The period of darkness beginning at the end of evening astronomical twilight when the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon, and ending at the beginning of morning astronomical twilight.
- Interjection
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Ellipsis of good night.
“Night, y'all! Thanks for a great evening!”
- Verb
-
To spend a night (in a place), to overnight.
Alternative forms: nite, neet
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English nighte, night, nyght, niȝt, naht, from Old English niht, from Proto-West Germanic *naht (“night”), from Proto-Germanic *nahts (“night”), from Proto-Indo-European *nókʷts (“night”).
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it NYT.
Rhymes with RIGHT MIGHT WHITE LIGHT QUITE
Related meanings
Synonyms dark nighttime
Opposites day
In a sentence
I was there that night.
I was up all night.
Use NIGHT in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 89.6% 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
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: July 12, 2022 (#388).
See the full page for that puzzle: July 12, 2022 (#388).
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 →NIGHT in Connections
3 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #1174
Reveal this appearance's category
NIGHT appeared in BEDTIME PARTING WORDS (yellow group).
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· Puzzle #1031
Reveal this appearance's category
NIGHT appeared in ___LIFE (purple group).
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· Puzzle #611
Reveal this appearance's category
NIGHT appeared in ___CAP (purple group).
How NIGHT performs as a guess
NIGHT is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 73.1% of games, misses completely in 26.9%, and leaves about 247 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,293 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.67 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 NIGHT 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 NIGHT 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 NIGHT in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
NIGHT can come back 87 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 NIGHT; 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 NIGHT
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to NIGHT.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing NIGHT:
Research on NIGHT
Game-tree analysis and word research for NIGHT, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with NIGHT, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,108 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 NIGHT can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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
- NIGHT sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 407 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 3, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 93 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.8 of 5).
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).