5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess A tier for first-turn info

SCARE

Yes, SCARE was the Wordle answer on April 8, 2022 (Wordle #293).

As an opener, it rules out about 96.5% of possible answers.

Open Solver with SCARE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /skɛə//skɛɚ//skɪə(ɹ)/

Noun

A minor fright.

“Johnny had a bad scare last night.”

Noun

A cause of terror or alarm; a panic; something that inspires fear or dread.

“a food-poisoning scare”

Verb

To frighten, terrify, startle, especially in a minor way.

“Did it scare you when I said "Boo!"?”

Verb

(To be able) to be scared.

“I don't scare easily.”

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

Yes

Included in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.

Possible answer

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: April 8, 2022 (#293).

See the full page for that puzzle: April 8, 2022 (#293).

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

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How verification and withdrawal work

The answer word and timezone are used transiently to verify this page, then discarded. The receipt prevents duplicate submissions and lets this browser withdraw later; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. Read the full privacy details.

How SCARE performs as a guess

SCARE 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 89.7% of games, misses completely in 10.3%, and leaves about 83 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #774 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.59 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

S___E S in the 1st position and E in the 5th position S__R_ S in the 1st position and R in the 4th position _C__E C in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in SCARE.

First-turn measures

All four describe SCARE 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.

5.62 Entropy (bits)
83 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
96.5% Avg ruled out
In the top 1% for first-turn entropy
0.32 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SCARE 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.

3.59 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#774 Rank among openers
Opening with SCARE left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.59 average. It ranks #774 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
94
3 guesses
971
4 guesses
1,096
5 guesses
176
6 guesses
14
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.46 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AERS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
90%
Green tile
41%
All gray
10%

Example solver route

R O A T E
C R I S P
S C A R E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SCARE in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

SCARE can come back 127 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

245 answers
160 answers
145 answers
131 answers
115 answers
93 answers
91 answers
88 answers
66 answers
58 answers
53 answers
52 answers
50 answers
46 answers
44 answers
33 answers
33 answers
31 answers
31 answers
31 answers
30 answers
29 answers
28 answers
26 answers
25 answers
25 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1C3A1R1E1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Try next

GUILT TALON INTEL TENOR FRONT SPILT

Strategy after playing SCARE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SCARE:

10% chance
Suggested:
GUILT
7% chance
Suggested:
TALON
6% chance
Suggested:
INTEL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

10.3% →
GUILT 5.48 bits
6.7% →
TALON 5.29 bits
6.1% →
INTEL 5.16 bits
5.5% →
TENOR 3.90 bits
4.8% →
FRONT 4.67 bits
3.9% →
SPILT 4.45 bits
3.8% →
CHUNK 4.80 bits
3.7% →
GUILE 4.75 bits
2.8% →
BARON 4.25 bits
2.4% →
ANGEL 4.39 bits

Research on SCARE

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

Optimal play

Opening with SCARE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.62 guesses and ranks #480 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.75 guesses at best and is rank #322 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, 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.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it SKEHR.

Rhymes with THEIR THERE WHERE SHARE AWARE

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SCARE is a kind of anxiety or fear.

Synonyms PANIC dash fright frighten

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SCARE sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 12 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B1); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 4, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 45 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with internal bodily sensation (4.5 of 5).

In a sentence

People like that scare me.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
People like you scare me.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).