SKIVE
SKIVE is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
As an opener, it rules out about 90.9% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈskaɪv/
- Verb
-
To avoid one's lessons or work (chiefly at school or university); shirk.
- Noun
-
Something very easy, where one can slack off without penalty.
“Mr Smith's history classes are a total skive.”
- Noun
-
An act of avoiding lessons or work.
- Verb
-
To pare or shave off the rough or thick parts of.
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
NoThe solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.
Past Wordle answer
Not used yetNo past answer date found.
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How SKIVE performs as a guess
Wordle accepts SKIVE 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 78.3% of games, misses completely in 21.7%, and leaves about 215 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,224 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.79 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe SKIVE 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How SKIVE 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Feedback distribution
SKIVE can come back 75 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for SKIVE; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing SKIVE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to SKIVE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing SKIVE:
Research on SKIVE
Game-tree analysis and word research for SKIVE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with SKIVE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.79 guesses and ranks #10,294 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.95 guesses at best and is rank #5,182 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.79, at or below the proven-optimal 3.79, 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 SKYV. Estimated pronunciation
This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, SKIVE is a kind of shave.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- SKIVE 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.
In a sentence
I often skive off school.
You often skive off school.
Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).