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

PEARL

Yes, PEARL was the Wordle answer on November 22, 2024 (Wordle #1252).

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /pɜːl/[pʰəːɫ]/pɝl/

Noun

A shelly concretion, usually rounded, and having a brilliant luster, with varying tints, found in the mantle, or between the mantle and shell, of certain bivalve mollusks, especially in the pearl oysters and river mussels, and sometimes in certain univalves. It is usually due to a secretion of shelly substance around some irritating foreign particle. Its substance is the same as nacre, or mother-of-pearl. Round lustrous pearls are used in jewellery.

Noun

Something precious.

Verb

To set or adorn with pearls, or with mother-of-pearl.

Verb

To cause to resemble pearls in shape; to make into small round grains.

“to pearl barley”

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

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English perle, from Old French perle of uncertain etymology. Probably via unattested Medieval Latin *pernula, from Latin perna (“haunch; a marine bivalve shaped like a leg of lamb”) but also derived from Medieval Latin perla, from Latin perula (“little bag”). Its typographic use follows the name given by Jean Jannon to the type used in his miniature editions of Vergil, Horace, & the New Testament in the 1620s, which were the smallest printed works to his time.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it PURL.

Rhymes with SWIRL MERLE WHIRL TWIRL WHORL

Related meanings

Synonyms drop bone IVORY bead

In a sentence

I don't know where Pearl is.
© tatoeba.org contributor Masatami (CC BY 2.0 FR)
He finished looking for the pearl.
© tatoeba.org contributor eleutherothentes1 (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use PEARL in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 96.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with PEARL 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: November 22, 2024 (#1252).

See the full page for that puzzle: November 22, 2024 (#1252).

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

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PEARL in Connections

8 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 PEARL performs as a guess

PEARL 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 88.5% of games, misses completely in 11.5%, and leaves about 94 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #530 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.58 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___L P in the 1st position and L in the 5th position P__R_ P in the 1st position and R in the 4th position _E__L E in the 2nd position and L in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe PEARL 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.

5.53 Entropy (bits)
94 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
96.1% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PEARL 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.

3.58 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#530 Rank among openers
Opening with PEARL left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.58 average. It ranks #530 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
94
3 guesses
980
4 guesses
1,096
5 guesses
167
6 guesses
14

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AELR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
35%
All gray
12%

Example solver route

R O A T E
B L A N D
P E A R L

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches PEARL in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

PEARL can come back 134 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

275 answers
164 answers
151 answers
142 answers
132 answers
123 answers
74 answers
73 answers
66 answers
60 answers
54 answers
52 answers
51 answers
49 answers
38 answers
37 answers
34 answers
34 answers
32 answers
32 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3E1A1R1L1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

HOIST TOISE NASTY GROUT COULD TOILE

Strategy after playing PEARL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PEARL:

12% chance
Suggested:
HOIST
7% chance
Suggested:
TOISE
6% chance
Suggested:
TOISE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

11.5% →
HOIST 5.85 bits
6.9% →
TOISE 5.37 bits
6.3% →
TOISE 4.63 bits
6.0% →
NASTY 4.76 bits
5.5% →
GROUT 4.96 bits
5.2% →
COULD 4.71 bits
3.1% →
TOILE 4.49 bits
3.1% →
SAUNT 4.35 bits
2.8% →
MAYOR 4.22 bits
2.5% →
DENSE 4.30 bits

Research on PEARL

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

Optimal play

Opening with PEARL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.61 guesses and ranks #245 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.75 guesses at best and is rank #328 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.58, at or below the proven-optimal 3.61, 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
PEARL sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 14 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 7, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 93 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.4 of 5).

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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).