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

SHIRE

Yes, SHIRE was the Wordle answer on January 17, 2022 (Wordle #212).

As an opener, it rules out about 95.8% of possible answers.

Open Solver with SHIRE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ʃaɪə//ʃaɪ(ə)ɹ/

Noun

The people living in a shire (noun sense 1.1) considered collectively.

Noun

The general area in which a person comes from or lives.

“When are you coming back to the shire?”

Verb

To constitute or reconstitute (a country or region) into one or more shires (noun sense 1.1) or counties.

“County Longford was shired in 1586.”

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: January 17, 2022 (#212).

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

Wordle Observatory

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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 SHIRE performs as a guess

SHIRE 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 88.1% of games, misses completely in 11.9%, and leaves about 99 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete v5 benchmark, it ranks #1,692 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.

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___E S in the 1st position and E in the 5th position S__R_ S in the 1st position and R in the 4th position _H__E H in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

Try next

TALON METAL CAROL ALTER TIDAL EAGLE
Words starting with S Words ending with E

First-turn measures

5.45 Entropy (bits)
99 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
95.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 98% of evaluated openers
0.50 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opener: v5 benchmark

How SHIRE 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.

3.61 Avg guesses
99.9% Win rate
0.72 Volatility
#1,692 v5 opener rank
In the complete v5 snapshot, SHIRE ranks #1,692 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
87
3 guesses
960
4 guesses
1,097
5 guesses
186
6 guesses
21
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

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EIRS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
43%
All gray
12%

Example solver route

R O A T E
P R I S M
S H I R E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SHIRE in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

125 possible patterns. Top outcomes:

280
175
158
158
132
114
94
63
63
56
51
43
36
34
33
33
32
32
29
28
27
26
26
26
25
24
24
22
21
20

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SHIRE:

12% chance
Suggested:
TALON
7% chance
Suggested:
METAL
7% chance
Suggested:
CAROL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

11.9% →
TALON 5.59 bits
7.4% →
METAL 5.28 bits
6.7% →
CAROL 5.00 bits
6.7% →
ALTER 4.13 bits
5.6% →
TIDAL 4.92 bits
4.8% →
EAGLE 4.54 bits
4.0% →
SLANT 4.52 bits
2.7% →
COATE 3.80 bits
2.7% →
MOUTH 4.73 bits
2.4% →
SLANT 4.22 bits

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1H4I1R1E1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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