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

SLANE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 96.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /sleɪn//slɑːn/

Noun

A one-eared spade for cutting turf or peat, consisting of an iron flat-bladed head and a long wooden shaft.

Alternative forms: slean

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

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

Past Wordle answer

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

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

Why this solver ranks SLANE highly

This solver ranks SLANE highly because it separates the possible answers well, even though it is not itself a possible answer.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 90.1% of games, misses completely in 9.9%, and leaves about 76 possible answers on average.

In the current bounded six-turn policy, it ranks #4 of 182 evaluated openers; exact misses rank first, then average guesses among wins.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #31 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.54 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 SLANE 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.

5.77 Entropy (bits)
76 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
96.8% Avg ruled out
In the top 1% for first-turn entropy
0.18 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SLANE 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.

3.54 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#31 Rank among openers
Opening with SLANE left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.54 average. It ranks #31 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
101
3 guesses
1,047
4 guesses
1,059
5 guesses
128
6 guesses
17
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
2 vowels
Common:
AELNS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
90%
Green tile
46%
All gray
10%

Feedback distribution

SLANE can come back 133 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

235 answers
179 answers
139 answers
103 answers
92 answers
70 answers
69 answers
68 answers
67 answers
66 answers
63 answers
60 answers
52 answers
48 answers
47 answers
33 answers
32 answers
32 answers
32 answers
29 answers
29 answers
29 answers
28 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
20 answers
20 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1L1A1N1E1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing SLANE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SLANE:

10% chance
Suggested:
COURT
8% chance
Suggested:
DETER
6% chance
Suggested:
CARAT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

9.9%
COURT 5.74 bits
7.5%
DETER 5.32 bits
5.9%
CARAT 4.98 bits
4.3%
TRODE 4.39 bits
3.9%
DILLY 4.83 bits
2.9%
TONIC 4.95 bits
2.9%
SHORT 4.50 bits
2.9%
TAPER 4.14 bits
2.8%
HOIST 4.77 bits
2.8%
DINER 4.58 bits

Research on SLANE

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

Optimal play

Opening with SLANE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.58 guesses and ranks #35 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 SLANE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.54, at or below the proven-optimal 3.58, 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 SLAYN.

Rhymes with TRAIN BRAIN PLANE CHAIN SPAIN

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SLANE 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).