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

PASTA

Yes, PASTA was the Wordle answer on February 12, 2024 (Wordle #968).

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈpæs.tə/[ˈpʰæstə][ˈpʰastə]

Noun

Dough made from wheat and water and sometimes mixed with egg and formed into various shapes; often sold in dried form and typically boiled for eating.

Noun

A dish or serving of pasta.

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

How it sounds

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

In a sentence

Is pasta good for you?
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Did you like the pasta?
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use PASTA in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 89.5% of possible answers.

Open Solver with PASTA 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: February 12, 2024 (#968).

See the full page for that puzzle: February 12, 2024 (#968).

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

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PASTA in Connections

2 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.

How PASTA performs as a guess

PASTA 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 73.4% of games, misses completely in 26.6%, and leaves about 250 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,991 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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.

P___A P in the 1st position and A in the 5th position P__T_ P in the 1st position and T in the 4th position _A__A A in the 2nd position and A in the 5th position PA_TA P in the 1st position, A in the 2nd position, T in the 4th position, and A in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe PASTA 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.

4.32 Entropy (bits)
250 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
89.5% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PASTA 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.

3.70 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#6,991 Rank among openers
Opening with PASTA left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.70 average. It ranks #6,991 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
55
3 guesses
831
4 guesses
1,236
5 guesses
217
6 guesses
13

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
73%
Green tile
26%
All gray
27%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S N I P Y
P A S T A

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches PASTA in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

PASTA can come back 90 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

635 answers
244 answers
199 answers
181 answers
135 answers
88 answers
82 answers
74 answers
66 answers
59 answers
54 answers
50 answers
48 answers
46 answers
30 answers
24 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3A1S1T1A1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Try next

RIONE LEARN ROUET ROULE MORNE SHALE

Strategy after playing PASTA

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PASTA:

27% chance
Suggested:
RIONE
10% chance
Suggested:
LEARN
8% chance
Suggested:
ROUET

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

26.6% →
RIONE 6.01 bits
10.2% →
LEARN 5.35 bits
8.3% →
ROUET 5.47 bits
7.6% →
ROULE 5.25 bits
5.7% →
MORNE 4.78 bits
3.7% →
ROUET 4.65 bits
3.4% →
SHALE 4.65 bits
3.1% →
ALERT 4.78 bits
2.8% →
RIONE 4.79 bits
2.5% →
RIONE 4.45 bits

Research on PASTA

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

Optimal play

Opening with PASTA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,349 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 PASTA can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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
PASTA 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with taste (5.0 of 5).

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).