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

ONION

Yes, ONION was the Wordle answer on September 2, 2023 (Wordle #805).

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈʌn.jən//ˈʌn.jɪn//ˈʌŋ.jɪn/

Noun

A monocotyledonous plant (Allium cepa), allied to garlic, used as vegetable and spice.

Noun

The bulb of such a plant.

“My eyes are stinging from the chopped onions.”

Alternative forms: onyon

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

From Middle English onyoun, oynoun, from Old French oignon, from Latin ūniōnem, accusative of ūniō (“onion”), which had also been borrowed into Old English as yne, ynnelēac (“onion”) (> Middle English hynne-leac, henne-leac). Displaced the inherited term ramsons.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

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

In a sentence

Shall I cut the onion?
© tatoeba.org contributor Helginka (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Tom is like an onion.
© tatoeba.org contributor rul (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use ONION in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 82.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with ONION Open Word Finder

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: September 2, 2023 (#805).

See the full page for that puzzle: September 2, 2023 (#805).

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

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ONION in Connections

10 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . Showing the 5 most recent. A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.

How ONION performs as a guess

ONION 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 62.7% of games, misses completely in 37.3%, and leaves about 427 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,700 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.88 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.

O___N O in the 1st position and N in the 5th position O__O_ O in the 1st position and O in the 4th position _N__N N in the 2nd position and N in the 5th position ON_ON O in the 1st position, N in the 2nd position, O in the 4th position, and N in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe ONION 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.

3.52 Entropy (bits)
427 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
82.1% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ONION 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.

3.88 Avg guesses
99.75% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#13,700 Rank among openers
Opening with ONION left 6 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.88 average. It ranks #13,700 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
32
3 guesses
648
4 guesses
1,273
5 guesses
357
6 guesses
37

Composition

3/5 unique
3 vowels
Common:
INO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
63%
Green tile
25%
All gray
37%

Example solver route

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

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches ONION in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

ONION can come back 60 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

889 answers
319 answers
236 answers
174 answers
139 answers
63 answers
52 answers
45 answers
43 answers
39 answers
39 answers
36 answers
36 answers
30 answers
27 answers
24 answers
20 answers
20 answers
16 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
5 answers
5 answers
4 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

O1N1I1O1N1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Try next

REAST SOREL SALET SLATE ROUTE STAGE

Strategy after playing ONION

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ONION:

37% chance
Suggested:
REAST
13% chance
Suggested:
SOREL
10% chance
Suggested:
SALET

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

37.3% →
REAST 6.26 bits
13.4% →
SOREL 5.21 bits
9.9% →
SALET 5.19 bits
7.3% →
SLATE 5.10 bits
5.8% →
SLATE 5.10 bits
2.6% →
ROUTE 4.18 bits
2.2% →
STAGE 3.93 bits
1.9% →
LATER 4.36 bits
1.8% →
MINCE 3.96 bits
1.6% →
SERAL 4.27 bits

Research on ONION

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

Optimal play

Opening with ONION, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.93 guesses and ranks #14,312 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.11 guesses at best and is rank #7,171 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.88, at or below the proven-optimal 3.93, 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
ONION sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 8 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Learner level
Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A2); among the first words English learners study.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 5, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 94 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); 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).