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

ROWEL

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɹoʊəl/

Noun

A small spiked wheel on the end of a spur of certain types.

Noun

A little flat ring or wheel on a horse's bit.

Verb

To use a rowel on (something), especially to drain fluid.

Verb

To fit with spurs.

Alternative forms: rowell

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

From Middle English rowel, rowell, rowelle, from Old French roel, roiele (compare modern French rouelle), from Late Latin rotella, diminutive of Latin rota (“wheel”). Doublet of rotella.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use ROWEL in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 94.5% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No 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.

How ROWEL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ROWEL 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 86.5% of games, misses completely in 13.5%, and leaves about 130 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,713 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.65 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 ROWEL 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.

5.00 Entropy (bits)
130 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.5% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ROWEL 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.

3.65 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#3,713 Rank among openers
Opening with ROWEL solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.65 average. It ranks #3,713 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
57
3 guesses
950
4 guesses
1,124
5 guesses
209
6 guesses
14

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ELOR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
31%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

ROWEL can come back 104 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

322 answers
246 answers
173 answers
168 answers
138 answers
121 answers
100 answers
97 answers
95 answers
90 answers
50 answers
49 answers
40 answers
40 answers
32 answers
32 answers
29 answers
28 answers
27 answers
23 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1O1W4E1L1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing ROWEL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ROWEL:

14% chance
Suggested:
SAINT
10% chance
Suggested:
SAINT
7% chance
Suggested:
SAINT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.5% →
SAINT 6.02 bits
10.3% →
SAINT 5.55 bits
7.3% →
SAINT 5.34 bits
7.0% →
SAUCY 5.02 bits
5.8% →
TRACE 4.81 bits
5.1% →
STALE 4.77 bits
4.2% →
SAINT 4.04 bits
4.1% →
SAUNT 4.39 bits
4.0% →
SAINT 5.17 bits
3.8% →
ARSON 4.27 bits

Research on ROWEL

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

Optimal play

Opening with ROWEL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #3,086 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 ROWEL can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.65, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
ROWEL 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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).