Accepted guess Not a possible answer C tier for first-turn info

SKEEN

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Proper noun

A surname.

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

From the Scottish Gaelic surname, from sceathan (“thorn bush”), from Proto-Celtic *skʷiyats (“hawthorn”), from Proto-Indo-European *skw-iy-h₂e-ts, from *skwey-.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it SKEEN.

Rhymes with GREEN CLEAN SCENE QUEEN SHEEN

Use SKEEN in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 89.9% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

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

How SKEEN performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SKEEN 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 74.9% of games, misses completely in 25.1%, and leaves about 241 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,926 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.78 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 SKEEN 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.

4.36 Entropy (bits)
241 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.9% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SKEEN 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.

3.78 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#10,926 Rank among openers
Opening with SKEEN 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 3.78 average. It ranks #10,926 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
52
3 guesses
739
4 guesses
1,247
5 guesses
300
6 guesses
15

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ENS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
75%
Green tile
36%
All gray
25%

Feedback distribution

SKEEN can come back 84 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

598 answers
312 answers
183 answers
147 answers
139 answers
125 answers
69 answers
62 answers
58 answers
55 answers
51 answers
40 answers
35 answers
34 answers
29 answers
29 answers
28 answers
25 answers
22 answers
21 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1K5E1E1N1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing SKEEN

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SKEEN:

25% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL
13% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
8% chance
Suggested:
GIANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.1% →
TRAIL 5.88 bits
13.1% →
TIARE 5.42 bits
7.7% →
GIANT 5.06 bits
6.2% →
LAIRY 4.27 bits
5.8% →
ROAST 4.71 bits
5.2% →
TRASH 4.90 bits
2.9% →
RIONE 4.23 bits
2.6% →
PAUSE 4.28 bits
2.4% →
CLARY 4.87 bits
2.3% →
CAIRN 4.31 bits

Research on SKEEN

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

Optimal play

Opening with SKEEN, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,198 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 SKEEN can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.78; proven optimal play reaches 3.77. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SKEEN sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).