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

ROWEN

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɹaʊən/

Noun

A stubble field left unploughed until late in the autumn, so that it can be cropped by cattle.

Noun

A second crop of hay (within a growing season).

Alternative forms: roughings, rowet, rowett, rowings

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

Etymology

From Middle English rewayn, from Anglo-Norman rewain, from an Old Northern French variant of Old French regain (“an increase”), from re- + gaigner (“to till, win”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

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

Rhymes with COHEN ROWAN ROHAN LOWEN KOHEN

Use ROWEN in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 93.8% 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 ROWEN performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ROWEN 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 84.8% of games, misses completely in 15.2%, and leaves about 148 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,422 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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 ROWEN 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.

4.93 Entropy (bits)
148 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.8% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ROWEN 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.

3.66 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#4,422 Rank among openers
Opening with ROWEN 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 3.66 average. It ranks #4,422 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
69
3 guesses
889
4 guesses
1,178
5 guesses
209
6 guesses
9

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ENOR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
85%
Green tile
30%
All gray
15%

Feedback distribution

ROWEN can come back 110 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

362 answers
301 answers
172 answers
153 answers
135 answers
106 answers
104 answers
101 answers
81 answers
73 answers
60 answers
44 answers
31 answers
31 answers
30 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
23 answers
22 answers
20 answers
20 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1O1W4E1N1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing ROWEN

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ROWEN:

15% chance
Suggested:
SAULT
13% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
7% chance
Suggested:
SLATY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.2% →
SAULT 5.94 bits
12.6% →
SLATE 5.84 bits
7.2% →
SLATY 5.07 bits
6.4% →
SAINT 5.19 bits
5.7% →
TRACE 4.85 bits
4.4% →
SAULT 5.10 bits
4.4% →
STAIR 3.76 bits
4.2% →
SALTY 4.62 bits
3.4% →
TROOP 3.97 bits
3.1% →
ANISE 4.52 bits

Research on ROWEN

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

Optimal play

Opening with ROWEN, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #3,012 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 ROWEN can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, 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
ROWEN 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).