5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess B tier for first-turn info

RELIC

Yes, RELIC was the Wordle answer on January 24, 2024 (Wordle #949).

As an opener, it rules out about 95.5% of possible answers.

Open Solver with RELIC Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɹɛlɪk/

Noun

That which remains; that which is left after loss or decay; a remaining portion.

Noun

Something old and outdated, possibly kept for sentimental reasons.

Verb

To cause (an object) to appear old or worn, to distress.

Adjective

Pertaining to the Big Bang.

Alternative forms: relick, relique

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: January 24, 2024 (#949).

See the full page for that puzzle: January 24, 2024 (#949).

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

Wordle Observatory · optional

Played this Wordle?

Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds

Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.

See the public data

The Observatory retains the selected puzzle, result, rating, optional Hard Mode answer and a random one-puzzle receipt. It stores no answer word, grid, guesses, account, email, IP-derived ID or reusable player identifier.

How verification and withdrawal work

The answer word and timezone are used transiently to verify this page, then discarded. The receipt prevents duplicate submissions and lets this browser withdraw later; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. Read the full privacy details.

How RELIC performs as a guess

RELIC 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 89.0% of games, misses completely in 11.0%, and leaves about 107 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,346 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.63 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

R___C R in the 1st position and C in the 5th position R__I_ R in the 1st position and I in the 4th position _E__C E in the 2nd position and C in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in RELIC.

First-turn measures

All four describe RELIC 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.

5.16 Entropy (bits)
107 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
95.5% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 91% of evaluated openers
0.78 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How RELIC 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.

3.63 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#2,346 Rank among openers
Opening with RELIC left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.63 average. It ranks #2,346 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
61
3 guesses
970
4 guesses
1,122
5 guesses
181
6 guesses
17
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
2 vowels
Common:
EILR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
89%
Green tile
23%
All gray
11%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S I L E N
R E L I C

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches RELIC in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

RELIC can come back 96 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

260 answers
184 answers
182 answers
176 answers
128 answers
127 answers
111 answers
84 answers
64 answers
63 answers
54 answers
50 answers
46 answers
43 answers
43 answers
43 answers
42 answers
40 answers
38 answers
38 answers
33 answers
31 answers
27 answers
23 answers
23 answers
21 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1E1L1I1C3
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

SNOUT SAUNT STOAE SAINT SABLE CHANT

Strategy after playing RELIC

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing RELIC:

11% chance
Suggested:
SNOUT
8% chance
Suggested:
SAUNT
8% chance
Suggested:
SAUNT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

11.0% →
SNOUT 5.69 bits
7.8% →
SAUNT 5.20 bits
7.7% →
SAUNT 5.43 bits
7.4% →
STOAE 4.72 bits
5.4% →
SAINT 5.21 bits
5.3% →
SAUNT 5.06 bits
4.7% →
SABLE 4.54 bits
3.5% →
CHANT 4.97 bits
2.7% →
SNIDE 4.72 bits
2.7% →
STADE 4.53 bits

Research on RELIC

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

Optimal play

Opening with RELIC, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,784 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.78 guesses at best and is rank #979 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.63, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it REHLIHK.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, RELIC is a kind of antiquity or object.

Synonyms TOKEN souvenir

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
RELIC sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 2 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 11, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 56 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.0 of 5).

In a sentence

David will become a relic of the past.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Antonio threw the relic from the boat.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).