5 FiveLetterWords
Accepted guess Not a possible answer B tier for first-turn info

SHEOL

SHEOL is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.

As an opener, it rules out about 94.9% of possible answers.

Open Solver with SHEOL Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Proper noun

Alternative letter-case form of Sheol.

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

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

Past Wordle answer

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

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

How SHEOL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SHEOL 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 88.6% of games, misses completely in 11.4%, and leaves about 121 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,575 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.63 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___L S in the 1st position and L in the 5th position S__O_ S in the 1st position and O in the 4th position _H__L H in the 2nd position and L in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe SHEOL 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.

5.16 Entropy (bits)
121 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 91% of evaluated openers
0.78 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SHEOL 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.

3.63 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#2,575 Rank among openers
Opening with SHEOL left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.63 average. It ranks #2,575 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
74
3 guesses
955
4 guesses
1,115
5 guesses
184
6 guesses
24
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
2 vowels
Common:
ELOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
89%
Green tile
34%
All gray
11%

Feedback distribution

SHEOL can come back 111 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

323 answers
270 answers
152 answers
123 answers
120 answers
101 answers
89 answers
63 answers
63 answers
60 answers
60 answers
55 answers
53 answers
53 answers
44 answers
41 answers
41 answers
40 answers
32 answers
30 answers
29 answers
29 answers
28 answers
26 answers
22 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
17 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1H4E1O1L1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Try next

REATE TRAIN ADORN RAINY RAILE RONTE

Strategy after playing SHEOL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SHEOL:

14% chance
Suggested:
REATE
11% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
6% chance
Suggested:
ADORN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.6% →
REATE 5.43 bits
11.4% →
TRAIN 5.97 bits
6.4% →
ADORN 4.96 bits
5.2% →
RAINY 4.63 bits
5.1% →
RAILE 4.69 bits
4.3% →
RONTE 4.55 bits
3.7% →
SCANT 4.62 bits
2.7% →
MANOR 4.45 bits
2.7% →
MIRTH 4.49 bits
2.5% →
TRADE 4.42 bits

Research on SHEOL

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

Optimal play

Opening with SHEOL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,194 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.79 guesses at best and is rank #1,186 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.63, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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 SHEEL. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SHEOL is a kind of vision.

Synonyms hell underworld HADES

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SHEOL sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).