Possible answer Not used yet C tier for first-turn info

SLIMY

SLIMY is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.

As an opener, it rules out about 91.9% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈslaɪ.mi//ˈslɑe.mi/[ˈslɑe̯.mi]

Adjective

Of or pertaining to slime.

Adjective

Resembling, of the nature of, covered or daubed with, or abounding in slime.

“The frog's body was all slimy.”

Noun

A ponyfish.

Alternative forms: slimey

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

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 SLIMY performs as a guess

SLIMY is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 77.3% of games, misses completely in 22.7%, and leaves about 193 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,091 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 SLIMY 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.

4.66 Entropy (bits)
193 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
91.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 63% of evaluated openers
1.28 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SLIMY 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.

3.62 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#2,091 Rank among openers
Opening with SLIMY solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.62 average. It ranks #2,091 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
52
3 guesses
981
4 guesses
1,138
5 guesses
168
6 guesses
14
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:
ILS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
77%
Green tile
45%
All gray
23%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I M Y

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SLIMY in 2 guesses.

Feedback distribution

SLIMY can come back 93 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

540 answers
171 answers
170 answers
165 answers
141 answers
115 answers
104 answers
102 answers
85 answers
63 answers
48 answers
34 answers
33 answers
32 answers
30 answers
27 answers
25 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
23 answers
23 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1L1I1M3Y4
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing SLIMY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SLIMY:

23% chance
Suggested:
TRACE
7% chance
Suggested:
RONTE
7% chance
Suggested:
OATER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.7%
TRACE 6.42 bits
7.2%
RONTE 5.37 bits
7.2%
OATER 5.14 bits
7.0%
PEART 5.39 bits
5.9%
DRONE 4.80 bits
4.8%
ROATE 5.43 bits
4.4%
TRONE 5.15 bits
4.3%
BRACE 4.96 bits
3.6%
OATER 5.32 bits
2.7%
TIARE 4.41 bits

Research on SLIMY

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

Optimal play

Opening with SLIMY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #3,878 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.82 guesses at best and is rank #1,907 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.69, 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 SLYMEE.

Rhymes with GRIMY

Related meanings

Synonyms ugly worthless vile despicable wretched unworthy

Opposites good

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SLIMY sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 5, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 80 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with touch (4.2 of 5).

In a sentence

Something green and slimy was on the rock.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Don't pick slimy things up off the ground.
© tatoeba.org contributor CM (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).