PIQUE
Yes, PIQUE was the Wordle answer on October 26, 2023 (Wordle #859).
As an opener, it rules out about 89.9% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /piːk//pik//ˈpiːkeɪ/
- Verb
-
To wound the pride of (someone); to excite to anger; to irritate, to offend.
- Verb
-
To excite (someone) to action, especially by causing jealousy, resentment, etc.; also, to stimulate (an emotion or feeling, especially curiosity or interest).
“I believe this will pique your interest.”
- Noun
-
Enmity, ill feeling; (countable) a feeling of animosity or a dispute.
- Noun
-
Irritation or resentment awakened by a social injury or slight; offence, especially taken in an emotional sense with little consideration or thought; (countable) especially in fit of pique: a transient feeling of wounded pride.
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
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 26, 2023 (#859).
See the full page for that puzzle: October 26, 2023 (#859).
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 →How PIQUE performs as a guess
PIQUE 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 79.3% of games, misses completely in 20.7%, and leaves about 239 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,192 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 PIQUE 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 PIQUE 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 PIQUE in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
PIQUE can come back 60 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 PIQUE; 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 PIQUE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to PIQUE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing PIQUE:
Research on PIQUE
Game-tree analysis and word research for PIQUE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with PIQUE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.84 guesses and ranks #12,267 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 PIQUE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.82, at or below the proven-optimal 3.84, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, PIQUE is a kind of material or annoyance.
Synonyms temper offend irritation
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- PIQUE sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.
In a sentence
What would pique your interest?
That was enough to pique my curiosity.
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).