Accepted guess Not a possible answer C tier for first-turn info

PASSE

PASSE is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.

Meaning and pronunciation

Adjective

Alternative spelling of passé.

Verb

Obsolete spelling of pass.

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

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the second syllable Say it PASAY.

Rhymes with TODAY DELAY ANIME ESSAY SPRAY

Related meanings

Synonyms ex antique

Opposites fashionable

Use PASSE in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 92.5% of possible answers.

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

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

Past Wordle answer

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

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

How PASSE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PASSE as a guess, but the solver does not list it as a possible answer.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 81.9% of games, misses completely in 18.1%, and leaves about 178 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,350 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.77 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 PASSE 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.

4.68 Entropy (bits)
178 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.5% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PASSE 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.

3.77 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#10,350 Rank among openers
Opening with PASSE left 3 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 3.77 average. It ranks #10,350 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
60
3 guesses
748
4 guesses
1,239
5 guesses
283
6 guesses
21

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AES

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
39%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

PASSE can come back 95 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

432 answers
308 answers
220 answers
153 answers
141 answers
115 answers
107 answers
67 answers
58 answers
46 answers
43 answers
43 answers
37 answers
37 answers
33 answers
32 answers
29 answers
27 answers
26 answers
22 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3A1S1S1E1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing PASSE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PASSE:

18% chance
Suggested:
COUNT
13% chance
Suggested:
TENOR
9% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.1% →
COUNT 5.73 bits
12.9% →
TENOR 5.11 bits
9.2% →
TRAIL 5.27 bits
6.4% →
GOIER 4.30 bits
5.9% →
CANDY 3.96 bits
4.8% →
SNOUT 4.70 bits
4.5% →
RENAL 4.71 bits
2.8% →
GLARE 3.63 bits
2.4% →
STALK 4.02 bits
1.9% →
RATEL 3.40 bits

Research on PASSE

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

Optimal play

Opening with PASSE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,279 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 PASSE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.77; proven optimal play reaches 3.75. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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
PASSE 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); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).