SLAKE
SLAKE is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /sleɪk/
- Verb
-
To satisfy (thirst, or other desires).
- Verb
-
To cool (something) with water or another liquid.
- Noun
-
A sloppy mess.
- Noun
-
A slack, a tidal wetland.
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English slaken (“to render slack, to slake”), from Old English sleacian, from Old English slæc (“slack”). Unrelated to, but possibly influenced by, the Old Norse sløkkva (“to extinguish”), compare Swedish släcka in the phrase släcka sin törst (“quench one's thirst”), släcka elden (“put out the fire”), and släckt kalk (“slaked lime”).
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
Related meanings
Synonyms SLACK
In a sentence
If only he had some water with which to slake his thirst!
Use SLAKE in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 95.1% of possible answers.
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
No completed appearanceNo 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.
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See what the public sample says →How SLAKE performs as a guess
Wordle accepts SLAKE 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 86.3% of games, misses completely in 13.7%, and leaves about 118 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,030 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.65 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 SLAKE 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 SLAKE 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
SLAKE can come back 120 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 SLAKE; 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 SLAKE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to SLAKE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing SLAKE:
Research on SLAKE
Game-tree analysis and word research for SLAKE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with SLAKE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.65 guesses and ranks #1,784 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.80 guesses at best and is rank #1,261 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.65, at or below the proven-optimal 3.65, 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
- SLAKE 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); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).