RETCH
Yes, RETCH was the Wordle answer on November 24, 2021 (Wordle #158).
As an opener, it rules out about 94.0% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ɹɛt͡ʃ/
- Verb
-
To make or experience an unsuccessful effort to vomit; to strain or spasm, as if to vomit; to gag or nearly vomit.
- Verb
-
To vomit; to make or experience a successful effort to vomit.
- Noun
-
An unsuccessful effort to vomit.
Alternative forms: reach
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: November 24, 2021 (#158).
See the full page for that puzzle: November 24, 2021 (#158).
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 RETCH performs as a guess
RETCH 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 84.2% of games, misses completely in 15.8%, and leaves about 143 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,138 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 RETCH 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 RETCH 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 RETCH in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
RETCH can come back 112 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 RETCH; 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 RETCH
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to RETCH.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing RETCH:
Research on RETCH
Game-tree analysis and word research for RETCH, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with RETCH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,690 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 RETCH can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, 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
One syllable Say it REHCH. Estimated pronunciation
This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, RETCH is a kind of compression or pass.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- RETCH sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.
In a sentence
Sorry for what I wrote, because I wanted to retch.
Just remembering the smell of that rotten food makes me want to retch.
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).