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

SKENE

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈskiːni/

Noun

An element of ancient Greek theater: the structure at the back of the stage.

Noun

Alternative form of skean (“a kind of dagger”).

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

Etymology

From Ancient Greek σκηνή (skēnḗ, “tent”). Doublet of scene and scena.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it SKEEN.

Rhymes with GREEN CLEAN SCENE QUEEN SHEEN

Use SKENE in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 90.2% 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 SKENE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SKENE 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 234 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,797 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.76 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 SKENE 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.

4.39 Entropy (bits)
234 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.2% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SKENE 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.

3.76 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#9,797 Rank among openers
Opening with SKENE solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.76 average. It ranks #9,797 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
48
3 guesses
763
4 guesses
1,270
5 guesses
258
6 guesses
15

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ENS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
75%
Green tile
41%
All gray
25%

Feedback distribution

SKENE can come back 80 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

598 answers
280 answers
179 answers
149 answers
139 answers
125 answers
89 answers
84 answers
58 answers
47 answers
45 answers
40 answers
37 answers
29 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1K5E1N1E1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing SKENE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SKENE:

25% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL
12% chance
Suggested:
RATEL
8% chance
Suggested:
GRATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.1% →
TRAIL 5.88 bits
11.7% →
RATEL 5.31 bits
7.5% →
GRATE 4.57 bits
6.2% →
TONIC 5.10 bits
5.8% →
ROAST 4.71 bits
5.2% →
TRASH 4.90 bits
3.7% →
LAIRY 4.32 bits
3.5% →
LINER 4.56 bits
2.4% →
CLARY 4.87 bits
2.0% →
PLATE 4.08 bits

Research on SKENE

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

Optimal play

Opening with SKENE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,097 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.93 guesses at best and is rank #4,812 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.76, at or below the proven-optimal 3.77, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SKENE 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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).