SCHWA
SCHWA is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
As an opener, it rules out about 88.0% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ʃwɑ//ʃwə//ʃwʌ/
- Noun
-
An indeterminate central vowel sound as the "a" in "about", represented as /ə/ in IPA.
- Noun
-
The name of the Latin script letter Ə/ə.
- Verb
-
To be reduced to schwa.
Alternative forms: shwa, schwə
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
NoThe solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.
Past Wordle answer
Not used yetNo past answer date found.
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 SCHWA performs as a guess
Wordle accepts SCHWA 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 73.4% of games, misses completely in 26.6%, and leaves about 285 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,819 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.76 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 SCHWA 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 SCHWA 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
Feedback distribution
SCHWA can come back 67 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 SCHWA; 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 SCHWA
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to SCHWA.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing SCHWA:
Research on SCHWA
Game-tree analysis and word research for SCHWA, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with SCHWA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.79 guesses and ranks #10,374 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.90 guesses at best and is rank #4,234 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.76, at or below the proven-optimal 3.79, 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, SCHWA is a kind of vowel.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- SCHWA 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.
In a sentence
A schwa represents a neutral vowel.
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).