SCANT
Yes, SCANT was the Wordle answer on January 4, 2024 (Wordle #929).
As an opener, it rules out about 94.6% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /skænt//skant//skæːnt/
- Adjective
-
Not full, large, or plentiful; scarcely sufficient; scanty; meager.
“a scant allowance of provisions or water; a scant pattern of cloth for a garment”
- Adjective
-
Sparing; parsimonious; chary.
- Verb
-
To limit in amount or share; to stint.
“to scant someone in provisions; to scant ourselves in the use of necessaries”
- Verb
-
To fail, or become less; to scantle.
“The wind scants.”
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: January 4, 2024 (#929).
See the full page for that puzzle: January 4, 2024 (#929).
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 SCANT performs as a guess
SCANT 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 83.2% of games, misses completely in 16.8%, and leaves about 129 possible answers on average.
In the current bounded six-turn policy, it ranks #37 of 182 evaluated openers; exact misses rank first, then average guesses among wins.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #37 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.54 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 SCANT 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 SCANT 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 SCANT in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
SCANT can come back 116 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 SCANT; 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 SCANT
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to SCANT.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing SCANT:
Research on SCANT
Game-tree analysis and word research for SCANT, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with SCANT, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.62 guesses and ranks #439 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 SCANT can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.54, at or below the proven-optimal 3.62, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, SCANT is a kind of work or limit.
Synonyms LIGHT SHORT STINT insufficient deficient
Opposites sufficient
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- SCANT sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.9 of 5).
In a sentence
Your message was scant on details.
The volunteer firefighters fought the blaze bravely, with scant regard for their own safety.
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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).