ROYAL
Yes, ROYAL was the Wordle answer on April 12, 2022 (Wordle #297).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈɹɔɪ̯.əl/[ˈɹʷɔɪ̯.əl] ~ [ˈɹʷɔɪ̯.l̩]/ˈɹɔ.jəl/
- Adjective
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Of or relating to a monarch or his (or her) family.
- Adjective
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Having the air or demeanour of a monarch; illustrious; magnanimous; of more than common size or excellence.
- Noun
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A royal person; a member of a royal family.
- Noun
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A standard size of printing paper, measuring 25 by 20 inches.
Alternative forms: r., roial, roiall, royall
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English royal, from Old French roial (Modern French royal), from Latin rēgālis, from rēx (“king”). Doublet of regal (“befitting a king”), real (“unit of currency”), ariary, and riyal. Cognate with Spanish real, Italian reale, Catalan reial. Displaced native Old English cynelīċ.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it ROYUHL.
Rhymes with LOYAL
Related meanings
Synonyms purple imperial majestic REGAL NOBLE crowned
In a sentence
Will you watch the royal wedding?
The royal family lives in the Royal House.
Use ROYAL in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 95.2% 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
Used oncePast Wordle answer: April 12, 2022 (#297).
See the full page for that puzzle: April 12, 2022 (#297).
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 →ROYAL in Connections
3 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #1072
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ROYAL appeared in MLB PLAYER (blue group).
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· Puzzle #905
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ROYAL appeared in MLB PLAYER (blue group).
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· Puzzle #6
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ROYAL appeared in SHADES OF BLUE (green group).
How ROYAL performs as a guess
ROYAL 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 88.8% of games, misses completely in 11.2%, and leaves about 115 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,495 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 ROYAL 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 ROYAL 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 ROYAL in 2 guesses.
Feedback distribution
ROYAL 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 ROYAL; 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 ROYAL
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to ROYAL.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing ROYAL:
Research on ROYAL
Game-tree analysis and word research for ROYAL, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with ROYAL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #4,001 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.83 guesses at best and is rank #2,138 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 3.69, 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
- ROYAL sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 71 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Learner level
- Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A2); among the first words English learners study.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 6, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 60 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.7 of 5).
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).