SHAME
Yes, SHAME was the Wordle answer on April 15, 2022 (Wordle #300).
As an opener, it rules out about 94.5% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈʃeɪ̯m/[ˈʃeɪ̯m]/ˈʃæɪ̯m/
- Noun
-
An uncomfortable or painful feeling due to recognition or consciousness of one's own impropriety or dishonor, or something being exposed that should have been kept private.
“When I realized that I had hurt my friend, I felt deep shame.”
- Noun
-
Something to regret.
“It was a shame not to see the show after driving all that way.”
- Interjection
-
A cry of admonition for the subject of a speech, either to denounce the speaker or to agree with the speaker's denunciation of some person or matter; often used reduplicated, especially in political debates.
- Interjection
-
Ellipsis of what a shame; expressing disappointment or sympathy
“Shame, you poor thing, you must be cold!”
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: April 15, 2022 (#300).
See the full page for that puzzle: April 15, 2022 (#300).
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 SHAME performs as a guess
SHAME 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 86.5% of games, misses completely in 13.5%, and leaves about 130 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,443 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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 SHAME 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 SHAME 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 SHAME in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
SHAME can come back 112 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 SHAME; 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 SHAME
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to SHAME.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing SHAME:
Research on SHAME
Game-tree analysis and word research for SHAME, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with SHAME, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,829 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 SHAME can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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, SHAME is a kind of feeling or standing.
Synonyms pity disgrace
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- SHAME sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 35 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 8, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 40 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with internal bodily sensation (3.2 of 5).
In a sentence
That would be a shame.
Do you have no shame?
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).