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

SHELF

Yes, SHELF was the Wordle answer on March 25, 2025 (Wordle #1375).

As an opener, it rules out about 92.0% of possible answers.

Open Solver with SHELF Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ʃɛlf/

Noun

A flat, rigid structure, fixed at right angles to a wall or forming a part of a cabinet, desk, etc., and used to display, store, or support objects.

“We keep the old newspapers on the bottom shelf of the cupboard, and our photos on the top shelf.”

Noun

The capacity of such an object

“a shelf of videos”

Verb

Alternative form of shelve.

Alternative forms: shelve

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 25, 2025 (#1375).

See the full page for that puzzle: March 25, 2025 (#1375).

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

Wordle Observatory · optional

Played this Wordle?

Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds

Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.

See the public data

The Observatory retains the selected puzzle, result, rating, optional Hard Mode answer and a random one-puzzle receipt. It stores no answer word, grid, guesses, account, email, IP-derived ID or reusable player identifier.

How verification and withdrawal work

The answer word and timezone are used transiently to verify this page, then discarded. The receipt prevents duplicate submissions and lets this browser withdraw later; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. Read the full privacy details.

How SHELF performs as a guess

SHELF 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 81.8% of games, misses completely in 18.2%, and leaves about 190 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,643 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.

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___F S in the 1st position and F in the 5th position S__L_ S in the 1st position and L in the 4th position _H__F H in the 2nd position and F in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe SHELF 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.

4.60 Entropy (bits)
190 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
92.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 59% of evaluated openers
1.34 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SHELF 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#5,643 Rank among openers
Opening with SHELF left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.68 average. It ranks #5,643 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
59
3 guesses
857
4 guesses
1,225
5 guesses
197
6 guesses
14
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

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ELS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
30%
All gray
18%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S I L E N
C H A M P
S H E L F

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SHELF in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

SHELF can come back 91 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

433 answers
395 answers
159 answers
137 answers
120 answers
102 answers
87 answers
70 answers
66 answers
63 answers
59 answers
48 answers
45 answers
39 answers
38 answers
34 answers
31 answers
31 answers
29 answers
23 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
17 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1H4E1L1F4
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Try next

TRAIN ROATE TONAL RANEE ROANY TORCH

Strategy after playing SHELF

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SHELF:

18% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
17% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
7% chance
Suggested:
TONAL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.2% →
TRAIN 6.04 bits
16.6% →
ROATE 5.26 bits
6.7% →
TONAL 4.99 bits
5.8% →
RANEE 4.70 bits
5.1% →
ROANY 4.75 bits
4.3% →
TORCH 4.91 bits
3.7% →
ROAST 4.98 bits
2.9% →
ROAST 4.75 bits
2.8% →
PARTE 4.50 bits
2.7% →
IDYLL 4.17 bits

Research on SHELF

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

Optimal play

Opening with SHELF, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.74 guesses and ranks #7,418 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 #2,902 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 3.74, 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 SHEHLF.

Rhymes with DELPH

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SHELF is a kind of support or ridge.

Synonyms LEDGE

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SHELF sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 10 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 A1); among the first words English learners study.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 6, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 92 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.5 of 5).

In a sentence

This is from that shelf.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
What shelf is it on?
© tatoeba.org contributor mailohilohi (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).