ONSET
Yes, ONSET was the Wordle answer on August 30, 2022 (Wordle #437).
As an opener, it rules out about 95.5% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈɒnˌsɛt//ˈɔnˌsɛt//ˈɑnˌsɛt/
- Noun
-
The initial phase of a disease or condition, in which symptoms first become apparent.
“the onset of schizophrenia”
- Noun
-
The initial portion of a syllable, preceding the syllable nucleus.
- Verb
-
To assault; to set upon.
- Verb
-
To set about; to begin.
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
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: August 30, 2022 (#437).
See the full page for that puzzle: August 30, 2022 (#437).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
Wordle Observatory · optional
Played this Wordle?
Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds
Wordle Observatory · optional
Played this Wordle?
Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds
Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.
See the public dataThank you. Your result now helps describe this puzzle.
See what the public sample says →How ONSET performs as a guess
ONSET 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 89.0% of games, misses completely in 11.0%, and leaves about 106 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,109 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 ONSET 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 ONSET 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 ONSET in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
ONSET can come back 118 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 ONSET; 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 ONSET
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to ONSET.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing ONSET:
Research on ONSET
Game-tree analysis and word research for ONSET, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with ONSET, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.63 guesses and ranks #757 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 ONSET can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.63, 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 AHNSEHT.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, ONSET is a kind of start or operation.
Synonyms attack onslaught oncoming
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- ONSET sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 5 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
In a sentence
This looks like the onset of dementia.
We were surprised by the onset of cold weather.
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).