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

SMALT

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A deep blue pigment made from powdered glass mixed with cobalt oxide.

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 SMALT performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SMALT 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 82.2% of games, misses completely in 17.8%, and leaves about 136 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #41 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 SMALT 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.

5.15 Entropy (bits)
136 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 90% of evaluated openers
0.80 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SMALT 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
100% Solved within six
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#41 Rank among openers
Opening with SMALT solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.67 means those games clustered within about 0.67 of a guess of the 3.54 average. It ranks #41 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
75
3 guesses
1,069
4 guesses
1,078
5 guesses
120
6 guesses
12
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)
82%
Green tile
38%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

SMALT can come back 119 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

422 answers
178 answers
149 answers
145 answers
111 answers
95 answers
81 answers
80 answers
76 answers
68 answers
67 answers
61 answers
51 answers
39 answers
34 answers
31 answers
30 answers
29 answers
25 answers
24 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1M3A1L1T1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing SMALT

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SMALT:

18% chance
Suggested:
RIONE
7% chance
Suggested:
CARNE
6% chance
Suggested:
GOIER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.8%
RIONE 6.16 bits
7.5%
CARNE 5.36 bits
6.3%
GOIER 5.06 bits
6.1%
TRITE 5.47 bits
4.7%
RIONE 5.13 bits
4.0%
RENAL 4.72 bits
3.4%
MOIRE 5.15 bits
3.4%
DRICE 4.92 bits
3.2%
POIRE 5.07 bits
2.9%
GOIER 4.96 bits

Research on SMALT

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

Optimal play

Opening with SMALT, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.62 guesses and ranks #514 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.71 guesses at best and is rank #40 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.54, at or below the proven-optimal 3.62, 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 SMAWLT. Estimated pronunciation

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

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.