5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess C tier opener

SHELL

Yes, SHELL was the Wordle answer on October 2, 2024 (Wordle #1201).

As an opener, it rules out about 90.8% of possible answers.

Open Solver with SHELL Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ʃɛl//ʃel//ʃæl/

Noun

A hard external covering of an animal.

“In some mollusks, as the cuttlefish, the shell is concealed by the animal's outer mantle and is considered internal.”

Noun

The hard calcareous covering of a bird egg.

Verb

To remove the outer covering or shell of something.

Verb

To bombard, to fire projectiles at, especially with artillery.

“The guns shelled the enemy trenches.”

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: October 2, 2024 (#1201).

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

Wordle Observatory

How did this puzzle feel?

About the project

Add an anonymous result and difficulty rating to the public, aggregate research dataset.

We send only this answer word for puzzle verification, the puzzle number, result, difficulty vote, Hard Mode flag, timezone and a random one-puzzle receipt token. The Observatory stores no answer word, grid, guesses, account, email, IP-derived ID or reusable player identifier. The puzzle-specific receipt prevents duplicate submissions and permits withdrawal; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. See the privacy details.

How SHELL performs as a guess

SHELL is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,358 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 79.6% of games, misses completely in 20.4%, and leaves about 218 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete v5 benchmark, it ranks #9,599 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.75 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.

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

Try next

TRAIN RAINE ROANY PLAIN TORCH LEARE
Words starting with S Words ending with L

First-turn measures

4.44 Entropy (bits)
218 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
90.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 48% of evaluated openers
1.51 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opener: v5 benchmark

How SHELL 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.

3.75 Avg guesses
99.9% Win rate
0.72 Volatility
#9,599 v5 opener rank
In the complete v5 snapshot, SHELL ranks #9,599 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
46
3 guesses
804
4 guesses
1,206
5 guesses
269
6 guesses
25
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.45 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ELS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
34%
All gray
20%

Example solver route

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

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SHELL in 5 guesses. See the trap-family guide for similar endgames.

Feedback distribution

84 possible patterns. Top outcomes:

482
432
130
129
108
103
93
71
68
64
55
47
43
41
41
30
29
25
24
21
20
17
17
15
15
14
13
11
11
11

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SHELL:

20% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
18% chance
Suggested:
RAINE
6% chance
Suggested:
ROANY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.4% →
TRAIN 6.03 bits
18.3% →
RAINE 5.24 bits
5.5% →
ROANY 4.71 bits
5.5% →
PLAIN 4.73 bits
4.6% →
TORCH 4.91 bits
4.4% →
LEARE 4.46 bits
3.9% →
ROAST 4.98 bits
3.0% →
ROAST 4.71 bits
2.9% →
PARTE 4.50 bits
2.7% →
TRADE 4.52 bits

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1H4E1L1L1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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