SLUNK
SLUNK is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.
As an opener, it rules out about 89.9% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /slʌŋk/
- Noun
-
An animal, especially a calf, born prematurely or abortively.
- Verb
-
simple past and past participle of slink
- Noun
-
A slough, a low, wet, miry place. (Compare slank.)
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
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
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 SLUNK performs as a guess
SLUNK 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 73.5% of games, misses completely in 26.5%, and leaves about 240 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,116 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.67 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 SLUNK 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 SLUNK 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
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches SLUNK in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
SLUNK can come back 92 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 SLUNK; 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 SLUNK
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to SLUNK.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing SLUNK:
Research on SLUNK
Game-tree analysis and word research for SLUNK, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with SLUNK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,448 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 SLUNK can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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 SLUHNGK. Estimated pronunciation
This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, SLUNK is a kind of walk.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- SLUNK 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
When she yelled at the dog, it slunk away home.
The ferret slunk between the bars of the gate.
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).