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

SHOVE

Yes, SHOVE was the Wordle answer on December 6, 2024 (Wordle #1266).

As an opener, it rules out about 92.5% of possible answers.

Open Solver with SHOVE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ʃʌv//ʃʊv//ʃəʊv/

Verb

To push, especially roughly or with force.

Verb

To move off or along by an act of pushing, as with an oar or pole used in a boat; sometimes with off.

Noun

A rough push.

Noun

An all-in bet.

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: December 6, 2024 (#1266).

See the full page for that puzzle: December 6, 2024 (#1266).

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

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How SHOVE performs as a guess

SHOVE 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 82.7% of games, misses completely in 17.3%, and leaves about 177 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,358 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.
See strategy patterns

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__V_ S in the 1st position and V in the 4th position _H__E H in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe SHOVE 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.

4.66 Entropy (bits)
177 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
92.5% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 62% of evaluated openers
1.29 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SHOVE 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
100% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#9,358 Rank among openers
Opening with SHOVE solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.75 average. It ranks #9,358 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
60
3 guesses
772
4 guesses
1,244
5 guesses
253
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:
EOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
39%
All gray
17%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I N K
S C O P E
S H O V E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SHOVE in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

SHOVE can come back 90 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

410 answers
345 answers
201 answers
178 answers
130 answers
93 answers
77 answers
73 answers
67 answers
53 answers
43 answers
39 answers
38 answers
37 answers
37 answers
36 answers
35 answers
29 answers
28 answers
28 answers
24 answers
22 answers
22 answers
19 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1H4O1V4E1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Try next

TRAIL ALTER TONAL RAILE SLANT CLARY

Strategy after playing SHOVE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SHOVE:

17% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL
15% chance
Suggested:
ALTER
8% chance
Suggested:
TONAL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.3% →
TRAIL 5.85 bits
14.5% →
ALTER 5.40 bits
8.5% →
TONAL 5.00 bits
7.5% →
RAILE 4.42 bits
5.5% →
SLANT 4.71 bits
3.9% →
CLARY 4.08 bits
3.2% →
MIRTH 4.47 bits
3.1% →
SAIST 4.74 bits
2.8% →
OWNER 4.12 bits
2.2% →
PATER 4.25 bits

Research on SHOVE

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

Optimal play

Opening with SHOVE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.74 guesses and ranks #7,725 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with SHOVE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.75, 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 SHUHV.

Rhymes with ABOVE GLOVE

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SHOVE is a kind of push or force.

Synonyms STUFF squeeze thrust

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SHOVE sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 5 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.

In a sentence

I told him where to shove it.
© tatoeba.org contributor canonrebel (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Shove it up your ass.
© tatoeba.org contributor frpzzd (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).