PENNY
Yes, PENNY was the Wordle answer on October 21, 2026 (Wordle #1950).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈpɛni//ˈpɪni//pəni/
- Noun
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In the United Kingdom, a unit of currency worth ¹⁄₁₀₀ of a pound sterling, or a copper coin worth this amount. Abbreviation: p.
- Noun
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In the US and (formerly) Canada, a one-cent coin, worth ¹⁄₁₀₀ of a dollar. Abbreviation: ¢.
- Verb
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To jam a door shut by inserting pennies between the doorframe and the door.
“Zach and Ben had only been at college for a week when their door was pennied by the girls down the hall.”
- Verb
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To circumvent the tripping of an electrical circuit breaker by the dangerous practice of inserting a coin in place of a fuse in a fuse socket.
Alternative forms: peny, penie, pennie
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
How it sounds
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it PEHNEE.
Rhymes with JENNY BENNY TENNY VENEY
Related meanings
Synonyms cent
In a sentence
How much is that penny?
He didn't have a penny.
Use PENNY in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 87.5% of possible answers.
Wordle status
A word can be a playable guess without being a possible answer.
Playable guess
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: October 21, 2026 (#1950).
See the full page for that puzzle: October 21, 2026 (#1950).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →PENNY in Connections
3 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #629
Reveal this appearance's category
PENNY appeared in ASSOCIATED WITH GOOD LUCK (yellow group).
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· Puzzle #363
Reveal this appearance's category
PENNY appeared in PRETTY ___ (purple group).
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· Puzzle #35
Reveal this appearance's category
PENNY appeared in U.S. COINS (yellow group).
How PENNY performs as a guess
PENNY 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 75.7% of games, misses completely in 24.3%, and leaves about 297 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,431 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.82 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe PENNY 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How PENNY 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches PENNY in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
PENNY can come back 74 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for PENNY; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing PENNY
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to PENNY.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing PENNY:
Research on PENNY
Game-tree analysis and word research for PENNY, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with PENNY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.83 guesses and ranks #11,838 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 4.01 guesses at best and is rank #6,356 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.82, at or below the proven-optimal 3.83, 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
- PENNY sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 12 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 B1); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 4, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 96 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.5 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).