QUALM
Yes, QUALM was the Wordle answer on April 11, 2023 (Wordle #661).
As an opener, it rules out about 87.7% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /kwɑːm//kwɔːm//kwɑ(l)m/
- Noun
-
A feeling of apprehension, doubt, fear etc.
- Noun
-
A sudden sickly feeling; queasiness.
- Verb
-
To have a sickly feeling.
Alternative forms: calm
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: April 11, 2023 (#661).
See the full page for that puzzle: April 11, 2023 (#661).
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 QUALM performs as a guess
QUALM 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 71.4% of games, misses completely in 28.6%, and leaves about 293 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,414 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 QUALM 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 QUALM 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 QUALM in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
QUALM can come back 59 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 QUALM; 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 QUALM
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to QUALM.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing QUALM:
Research on QUALM
Game-tree analysis and word research for QUALM, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with QUALM, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.85 guesses and ranks #12,630 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.96 guesses at best and is rank #5,559 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 3.85, 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.
How it sounds
One syllable Say it KWAWLM. Estimated pronunciation
This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, QUALM is a kind of anxiety or sickness.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- QUALM 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.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sound (2.6 of 5).
In a sentence
He did not have any qualm of conscience.
My main qualm about the English language is its unmathematical and awkward orthography.
Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).