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

QUALE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈkwɑːleɪ//-li//ˈkweɪ-/

Noun

An instance of a subjective, conscious experience.

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

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

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 QUALE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts QUALE 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 86.0% of games, misses completely in 14.0%, and leaves about 150 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,230 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.

All gray? Tap a tile to cycle gray → yellow → green.

First-turn measures

All four describe QUALE 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.

4.66 Entropy (bits)
150 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 62% of evaluated openers
1.29 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How QUALE 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.

3.82 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#12,230 Rank among openers
Opening with QUALE left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.82 average. It ranks #12,230 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
47
3 guesses
698
4 guesses
1,282
5 guesses
288
6 guesses
37
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
3 vowels
Common:
AELU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
38%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

QUALE can come back 71 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

333 answers
287 answers
230 answers
158 answers
117 answers
111 answers
109 answers
85 answers
83 answers
83 answers
80 answers
60 answers
51 answers
47 answers
46 answers
40 answers
34 answers
28 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
22 answers
21 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

Q10U1A1L1E1
Total: 14 points

Words With Friends

Total: 16 points

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

Strategy after playing QUALE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing QUALE:

14% chance
Suggested:
SNORT
12% chance
Suggested:
TENOR
10% chance
Suggested:
RAINY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.0%
SNORT 5.76 bits
12.1%
TENOR 5.18 bits
9.7%
RAINY 4.82 bits
6.7%
SIREN 4.62 bits
4.9%
CHART 4.63 bits
4.7%
CRUST 5.20 bits
4.6%
SETER 4.37 bits
3.6%
SLING 4.28 bits
3.5%
REPEL 4.16 bits
3.5%
MUSHY 3.76 bits

Research on QUALE

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

Optimal play

Opening with QUALE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.81 guesses and ranks #11,058 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 QUALE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.82; proven optimal play reaches 3.81. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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 KWAYL.

Rhymes with SCALE EMAIL TRAIL WHALE SHALE

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
QUALE sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).