SCRAM
Yes, SCRAM was the Wordle answer on February 13, 2024 (Wordle #969).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /skɹæm/
- Verb
-
To leave in a hurry; to go away.
“What are you kids doing on my lawn? Scram!”
- Noun
-
A gun, firearm.
- Verb
-
To shut down (a nuclear reactor or, by extension, some other thing) for safety reasons, usually because of an emergency.
- Noun
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A shutdown of a nuclear reactor (or, by extension, some other thing), often done rapidly due to an emergency.
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
The verb is a variant of dialectal English scramb (“to pull or rake together with the hands; to gather a handful of something from the ground; to scratch with the claws or nails; to pull down violently; to tear off; to maul about; a handful of something from the ground”), possibly related to Dutch schrammen (“to graze, scratch”) and German schrammen (“to scratch, scrape”); see etymology 1.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it SKRAM.
Related meanings
Synonyms get
Use SCRAM in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 93.5% 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: February 13, 2024 (#969).
See the full page for that puzzle: February 13, 2024 (#969).
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 →SCRAM in Connections
1 recorded appearance in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #94
Reveal this appearance's category
SCRAM appeared in "SKEDADDLE!" (yellow group).
How SCRAM performs as a guess
SCRAM 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 83.3% of games, misses completely in 16.7%, and leaves about 154 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,934 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 SCRAM 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 SCRAM 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 SCRAM in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
SCRAM can come back 105 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 SCRAM; 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 SCRAM
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to SCRAM.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing SCRAM:
Research on SCRAM
Game-tree analysis and word research for SCRAM, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with SCRAM, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,173 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.77 guesses at best and is rank #661 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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
- SCRAM 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.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.2 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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).