SHARD
Yes, SHARD was the Wordle answer on February 3, 2022 (Wordle #229).
As an opener, it rules out about 94.0% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈʃɑːd/[ˈʃɑːd]/ˈʃɐːd/
- Noun
-
A piece of broken glass or pottery, especially one found in an archaeological dig.
- Noun
-
A piece of material, especially rock and similar materials, reminding of a broken piece of glass or pottery.
- Verb
-
To fall apart into shards, usually as the result of impact or explosion.
- Verb
-
To break (something) into shards.
Alternative forms: sherd
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: February 3, 2022 (#229).
See the full page for that puzzle: February 3, 2022 (#229).
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 SHARD performs as a guess
SHARD 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 84.8% of games, misses completely in 15.2%, and leaves about 142 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,741 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.61 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 SHARD 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 SHARD 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 SHARD in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
SHARD can come back 104 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 SHARD; 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 SHARD
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to SHARD.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing SHARD:
Research on SHARD
Game-tree analysis and word research for SHARD, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with SHARD, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,152 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 SHARD can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.61, at or below the proven-optimal 3.66, 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, SHARD is a kind of piece.
Synonyms fragment
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- SHARD sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
In a sentence
Tom cut himself on a shard of glass.
I stepped on a glass shard on the beach.
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).