Possible answer Not used yet B tier for first-turn info

OCTAL

OCTAL is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.

As an opener, it rules out about 94.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɒk.təl/

Noun

The number system that uses the eight digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

Noun

A digit or value in the octal number system.

Adjective

Concerning numbers expressed in octal or mathematical calculations performed using octal.

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

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

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

How OCTAL performs as a guess

OCTAL 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 86.1% of games, misses completely in 13.9%, and leaves about 133 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,655 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.61 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe OCTAL 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.

4.96 Entropy (bits)
133 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
94.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 82% of evaluated openers
0.98 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How OCTAL 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.

3.61 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#1,655 Rank among openers
Opening with OCTAL left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.61 average. It ranks #1,655 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
71
3 guesses
979
4 guesses
1,103
5 guesses
180
6 guesses
17
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:
ALOT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
18%
All gray
14%

Example solver route

R O A T E
B L O A T
O C T A L

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches OCTAL in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

OCTAL can come back 105 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

331 answers
230 answers
211 answers
166 answers
127 answers
107 answers
100 answers
94 answers
93 answers
63 answers
61 answers
52 answers
51 answers
40 answers
39 answers
37 answers
34 answers
27 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

O1C3T1A1L1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing OCTAL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing OCTAL:

14% chance
Suggested:
SIREN
10% chance
Suggested:
SNARE
9% chance
Suggested:
DRONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.9%
SIREN 6.07 bits
9.7%
SNARE 5.28 bits
8.9%
DRONE 5.31 bits
7.0%
SHIER 5.68 bits
5.3%
SIDEY 4.92 bits
4.5%
RANSE 4.67 bits
4.2%
SABLE 4.66 bits
4.0%
ROOST 4.68 bits
3.9%
PRICE 5.26 bits
2.7%
CRANE 4.81 bits

Research on OCTAL

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

Optimal play

Opening with OCTAL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,878 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 OCTAL can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.61, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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 AHKTUHL. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
OCTAL sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).