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

PASTE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 95.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /peɪst//ˈpæsteɪ//ˈpɑsteɪ/

Noun

A soft moist mixture, in particular:

Noun

A substance that behaves as a solid until a sufficiently large load or stress is applied, at which point it flows like a fluid.

Verb

To stick with paste; to cause to adhere by or as if by paste.

Verb

To insert a piece of media (e.g. text, picture, audio, video) previously copied or cut from somewhere else.

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 PASTE performs as a guess

PASTE 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 87.5% of games, misses completely in 12.5%, and leaves about 103 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #821 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.59 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 PASTE 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.

5.42 Entropy (bits)
103 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
95.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 97% of evaluated openers
0.52 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PASTE 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.

3.59 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#821 Rank among openers
Opening with PASTE left 1 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 3.59 average. It ranks #821 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
94
3 guesses
941
4 guesses
1,152
5 guesses
153
6 guesses
12
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:
AEST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
38%
All gray
12%

Example solver route

R O A T E
B U T C H
P A T T E
P A S T E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches PASTE in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

PASTE can come back 132 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

296 answers
219 answers
163 answers
119 answers
97 answers
95 answers
91 answers
81 answers
72 answers
56 answers
56 answers
56 answers
52 answers
50 answers
38 answers
37 answers
37 answers
33 answers
32 answers
31 answers
30 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
23 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3A1S1T1E1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing PASTE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PASTE:

12% chance
Suggested:
COULD
9% chance
Suggested:
OLDER
7% chance
Suggested:
ACORN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

12.5%
COULD 5.63 bits
9.2%
OLDER 5.05 bits
6.9%
ACORN 4.98 bits
5.0%
GOIER 4.43 bits
4.1%
COURT 5.02 bits
4.0%
RANDY 4.08 bits
3.8%
SLUNK 4.83 bits
3.4%
ENTER 4.67 bits
3.0%
RENAL 4.74 bits
2.4%
HOIST 4.16 bits

Research on PASTE

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

Optimal play

Opening with PASTE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.60 guesses and ranks #215 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 PASTE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, at or below the proven-optimal 3.60, 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

One syllable Say it PAYST.

Rhymes with BASED WASTE TASTE FACED WAIST

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, PASTE is a kind of composition or glass.

Synonyms spread glue

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
PASTE 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.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 6, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 58 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.1 of 5).

In a sentence

Has anyone seen the paste?
© tatoeba.org contributor sharptoothed (CC BY 2.0 FR)
It's made of a special paste.
© tatoeba.org contributor DJ_Saidez (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).