RIFLE
RIFLE is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈɹaɪfəl/
- Noun
-
A firearm fired from the shoulder; improved range and accuracy is provided by a long, rifled barrel.
- Noun
-
An artillery piece with a rifled barrel.
- Verb
-
To quickly search through many items (such as papers, the contents of a drawer, a pile of clothing).
“She made a mess when she rifled through the stack of papers, looking for the title document.”
- Verb
-
To commit robbery or theft.
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
Originally short for “rifled gun”, referring to the spiral grooves inside the barrel. From Middle English riflen (“to rob, plunder, search through”), from Old French rifler (“to lightly scratch, scrape off, plunder”), from Old High German riffilōn (compare German riffeln (“to score, make grooves in, ripple”), archaic Dutch rijfelen (“to scrape”), Old English rifelan, riflian (“to wrinkle”)), frequentative of Proto-Germanic *rīfaną (compare Old Norse rífa (“to tear, break”)). More at rive.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it RYFUHL.
Related meanings
Synonyms go STRIP loot plunder FORAY
In a sentence
You have a rifle, don't you?
She put the rifle away.
Use RIFLE in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 94.8% of possible answers.
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
No completed appearanceNo appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.
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 RIFLE performs as a guess
RIFLE is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 86.4% of games, misses completely in 13.6%, and leaves about 123 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,987 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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 RIFLE 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 RIFLE 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 RIFLE in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
RIFLE can come back 110 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 RIFLE; 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 RIFLE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to RIFLE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing RIFLE:
Research on RIFLE
Game-tree analysis and word research for RIFLE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with RIFLE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,426 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.81 guesses at best and is rank #1,657 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.66, 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.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- RIFLE sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 15 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 8, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 94 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0).