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

SHUNT

Yes, SHUNT was the Wordle answer on January 27, 2025 (Wordle #1318).

As an opener, it rules out about 90.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ʃʌnt//ʃənt//ʃant/

Verb

To cause to move (suddenly), as by pushing or shoving; to give a (sudden) start to.

Verb

To divert to a less important place, position, or state.

Noun

An act of moving (suddenly), as due to a push or shove.

Noun

A connection used as an alternative path between parts of an electrical circuit.

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 27, 2025 (#1318).

See the full page for that puzzle: January 27, 2025 (#1318).

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

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How SHUNT performs as a guess

SHUNT 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 73.6% of games, misses completely in 26.4%, and leaves about 220 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,186 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.60 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe SHUNT 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.

4.78 Entropy (bits)
220 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
90.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 70% of evaluated openers
1.17 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SHUNT 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.

3.60 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#1,186 Rank among openers
Opening with SHUNT left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.60 average. It ranks #1,186 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
65
3 guesses
1,023
4 guesses
1,062
5 guesses
181
6 guesses
21
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.46 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
NSTU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
74%
Green tile
36%
All gray
26%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S H U N T

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SHUNT in 2 guesses.

Feedback distribution

SHUNT can come back 113 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

627 answers
195 answers
144 answers
115 answers
115 answers
88 answers
83 answers
73 answers
64 answers
54 answers
51 answers
40 answers
39 answers
35 answers
34 answers
32 answers
27 answers
27 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1H4U1N1T1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing SHUNT

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SHUNT:

26% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
8% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
6% chance
Suggested:
TARTE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

26.4%
ARIEL 6.09 bits
8.2%
ARIEL 5.47 bits
6.1%
TARTE 5.52 bits
4.8%
MARLE 4.82 bits
4.8%
PARLE 5.43 bits
3.7%
PAIRE 5.20 bits
3.5%
ARIEL 5.08 bits
3.1%
GRADE 4.73 bits
2.7%
CARLE 5.06 bits
2.3%
RAIKE 4.53 bits

Research on SHUNT

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

Optimal play

Opening with SHUNT, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #3,038 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 #1,251 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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 SHUHNT.

Rhymes with FRONT BLUNT STUNT GRUNT BRUNT

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SHUNT is a kind of passage or conductor.

Synonyms bypass

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SHUNT 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (1.7 of 5).

In a sentence

He had a shunt in his heart.
© tatoeba.org contributor mccarras (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Can we shunt the water over to the canal?
© tatoeba.org contributor AlanF_US (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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).