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

PENED

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

past of pene

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

Related meanings

Synonyms WRITE compose penitentiary

Use PENED in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 89.3% 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 PENED performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PENED 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 72.5% of games, misses completely in 27.5%, and leaves about 256 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,221 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.67 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 PENED 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.

4.42 Entropy (bits)
256 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.3% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PENED 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.

3.67 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#5,221 Rank among openers
Opening with PENED left 2 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 3.67 average. It ranks #5,221 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
55
3 guesses
889
4 guesses
1,193
5 guesses
199
6 guesses
16

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EN

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
72%
Green tile
35%
All gray
28%

Feedback distribution

PENED can come back 92 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

656 answers
279 answers
194 answers
119 answers
98 answers
89 answers
85 answers
68 answers
57 answers
56 answers
49 answers
42 answers
42 answers
37 answers
28 answers
28 answers
26 answers
24 answers
22 answers
22 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3E1N1E1D2
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing PENED

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PENED:

28% chance
Suggested:
SLART
12% chance
Suggested:
SLART
8% chance
Suggested:
ROAST

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

27.5% →
SLART 6.03 bits
11.7% →
SLART 5.77 bits
8.1% →
ROAST 5.29 bits
5.0% →
ROAST 4.35 bits
4.1% →
SLART 5.23 bits
3.7% →
DROIT 4.88 bits
3.6% →
SLART 4.94 bits
2.9% →
COALY 4.35 bits
2.4% →
ANISE 4.65 bits
2.3% →
SOILY 4.52 bits

Research on PENED

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

Optimal play

Opening with PENED, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #5,066 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 PENED can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0).