SHAWN
SHAWN is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ʃɔːn//ʃoːn//ʃɔn/
- Proper noun
-
Alternative form of Shaun, a unisex given name.
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
A variant of Sean, from Irish Seán, from Old French Jehan, from Latin Jōhannēs, variant of Iōannēs, from Koine Greek Ἰωάννης (Iōánnēs), from Hebrew יוֹחָנָן (yōḥānān, yokhanán, literally “God is gracious”). Doublet of Evan, Giovanni, Ian, Ivan, Jack, Jean, Johan, Johann, Johannes, John, Juan, Sean, Shane, and Shaun as a male name.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it SHAWN.
Rhymes with DRAWN PRAWN BRAWN CARON MARON
In a sentence
Shawn Mendes appeared on the front page of the magazine.
Use SHAWN in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 90.7% 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
NoThe solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.
Past Wordle answer
No completed appearanceNo appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.
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 SHAWN performs as a guess
Wordle accepts SHAWN 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 76.3% of games, misses completely in 23.7%, and leaves about 221 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,823 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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 SHAWN 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 SHAWN 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
SHAWN can come back 95 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 SHAWN; 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 SHAWN
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to SHAWN.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing SHAWN:
Research on SHAWN
Game-tree analysis and word research for SHAWN, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with SHAWN, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #6,803 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.85 guesses at best and is rank #2,770 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.73, 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
- SHAWN sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 6 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
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).