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

SHALL

Yes, SHALL was the Wordle answer on March 29, 2022 (Wordle #283).

As an opener, it rules out about 90.4% of possible answers.

Open Solver with SHALL Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ʃæl//ʃal//ʃɛl/

Verb

Used before a verb to indicate the simple future tense in the first person singular or plural.

“I shall sing in the choir tomorrow.”

Verb

Used similarly to indicate determination or obligation in the second and third persons singular or plural.

“Things haven't turned out as I intended they should, but I still intend that you shall take over the business.”

Alternative forms: shal

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: March 29, 2022 (#283).

See the full page for that puzzle: March 29, 2022 (#283).

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

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How SHALL performs as a guess

SHALL 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 75.0% of games, misses completely in 25.0%, and leaves about 229 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,045 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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___L S in the 1st position and L in the 5th position S__L_ S in the 1st position and L in the 4th position _H__L H in the 2nd position and L in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe SHALL 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.

4.46 Entropy (bits)
229 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
90.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 49% of evaluated openers
1.49 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SHALL 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.

3.70 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#7,045 Rank among openers
Opening with SHALL left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.70 average. It ranks #7,045 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
43
3 guesses
884
4 guesses
1,170
5 guesses
236
6 guesses
19
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

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ALS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
75%
Green tile
38%
All gray
25%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I C K
S H A L L

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SHALL in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

SHALL can come back 83 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

593 answers
293 answers
150 answers
147 answers
116 answers
107 answers
100 answers
64 answers
54 answers
50 answers
43 answers
42 answers
41 answers
41 answers
40 answers
36 answers
35 answers
30 answers
28 answers
22 answers
18 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1H4A1L1L1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

RIONE TONER NOIRE TRINE RUOTE CONTE

Strategy after playing SHALL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SHALL:

25% chance
Suggested:
RIONE
12% chance
Suggested:
TONER
6% chance
Suggested:
NOIRE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.0% →
RIONE 6.10 bits
12.3% →
TONER 5.46 bits
6.3% →
NOIRE 5.01 bits
6.2% →
TRINE 5.26 bits
4.9% →
RUOTE 5.55 bits
4.5% →
CONTE 5.08 bits
4.2% →
DRICE 4.78 bits
2.7% →
ALTER 4.46 bits
2.3% →
TONER 4.31 bits
2.1% →
TRICE 4.89 bits

Research on SHALL

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

Optimal play

Opening with SHALL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,549 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 #4,248 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, at or below the proven-optimal 3.78, 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 SHAL.

Rhymes with CANAL

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SHALL sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 107 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.

In a sentence

When shall we do that?
© tatoeba.org contributor CM (CC BY 2.0 FR)
What shall I go in?
© tatoeba.org contributor carlosalberto (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS.