5 FiveLetterWords
Accepted guess Not a possible answer B tier for first-turn info

SLATY

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.8% of possible answers.

Open Solver with SLATY Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈsleɪti/

Adjective

Resembling the rock slate.

Adjective

Of a light grey colour as slate.

Alternative forms: slatey

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.

How SLATY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SLATY 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 84.0% of games, misses completely in 16.0%, and leaves about 124 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #219 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.57 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

S___Y S in the 1st position and Y in the 5th position S__T_ S in the 1st position and T in the 4th position _L__Y L in the 2nd position and Y in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in SLATY.

First-turn measures

All four describe SLATY 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.

5.23 Entropy (bits)
124 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 93% of evaluated openers
0.72 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SLATY 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.

3.57 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#219 Rank among openers
Opening with SLATY left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.57 average. It ranks #219 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
65
3 guesses
1,071
4 guesses
1,047
5 guesses
153
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
1 vowels
Common:
ALST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
47%
All gray
16%

Feedback distribution

SLATY can come back 117 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

380 answers
184 answers
171 answers
118 answers
114 answers
105 answers
86 answers
78 answers
71 answers
69 answers
67 answers
51 answers
44 answers
41 answers
40 answers
39 answers
32 answers
31 answers
28 answers
28 answers
23 answers
23 answers
23 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1L1A1T1Y4
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Try next

RIONE CROME ROUET GOIER DRONE CRINE

Strategy after playing SLATY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SLATY:

16% chance
Suggested:
RIONE
8% chance
Suggested:
CROME
7% chance
Suggested:
ROUET

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.0% →
RIONE 6.15 bits
7.8% →
CROME 5.45 bits
7.2% →
ROUET 5.55 bits
5.0% →
GOIER 4.99 bits
4.8% →
DRONE 4.83 bits
4.4% →
CRINE 5.15 bits
3.6% →
RANCE 4.62 bits
3.3% →
DRICE 4.83 bits
3.0% →
CARET 4.39 bits
2.9% →
RIONE 5.00 bits

Research on SLATY

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

Optimal play

Opening with SLATY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,310 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 SLATY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.57, at or below the proven-optimal 3.64, 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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it SLAYTEE. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Related meanings

Synonyms neutral

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SLATY 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), 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).