5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess B tier for first-turn info

SMILE

Yes, SMILE has been the Wordle answer on September 27, 2023 (Wordle #830) and May 30, 2026 (Wordle #1806).

As an opener, it rules out about 95.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with SMILE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈsmaɪl//ˈsmaɪ.əl/

Noun

A facial expression comprised by flexing the muscles of both ends of one's mouth, often showing the front teeth, without vocalisation, and in humans is a common involuntary or voluntary expression of happiness, pleasure, amusement, goodwill, or anxiety.

“She's got a perfect smile.”

Noun

Favour; propitious regard.

“the smile of the gods”

Verb

To have (a smile) on one's face.

“When you smile, the whole world smiles with you.”

Verb

To express by smiling.

“to smile consent, or a welcome”

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

Used 2 times

Past Wordle answer: September 27, 2023 (#830); May 30, 2026 (#1806).

See the full page for each puzzle: September 27, 2023 (#830); May 30, 2026 (#1806).

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

Wordle Observatory · optional

Played this Wordle?

Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds

Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.

See the public data

The Observatory retains the selected puzzle, result, rating, optional Hard Mode answer and a random one-puzzle receipt. It stores no answer word, grid, guesses, account, email, IP-derived ID or reusable player identifier.

How verification and withdrawal work

The answer word and timezone are used transiently to verify this page, then discarded. The receipt prevents duplicate submissions and lets this browser withdraw later; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. Read the full privacy details.

How SMILE performs as a guess

SMILE 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 86.4% of games, misses completely in 13.6%, and leaves about 116 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,558 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.61 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___E S in the 1st position and E in the 5th position S__L_ S in the 1st position and L in the 4th position _M__E M in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe SMILE 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.

5.24 Entropy (bits)
116 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
95.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 93% of evaluated openers
0.71 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SMILE 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.

3.61 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#1,558 Rank among openers
Opening with SMILE left 1 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 3.61 average. It ranks #1,558 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
82
3 guesses
947
4 guesses
1,135
5 guesses
177
6 guesses
11
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:
EILS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
41%
All gray
14%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I N G
S M I L E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SMILE in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

SMILE can come back 115 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

323 answers
245 answers
135 answers
132 answers
122 answers
109 answers
102 answers
82 answers
65 answers
62 answers
46 answers
43 answers
43 answers
42 answers
42 answers
40 answers
38 answers
36 answers
35 answers
33 answers
25 answers
25 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
18 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1M3I1L1E1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

THORN OATER ANTIC GRACE CAROL ROANY

Strategy after playing SMILE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SMILE:

14% chance
Suggested:
THORN
10% chance
Suggested:
OATER
6% chance
Suggested:
ANTIC

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.6% →
THORN 5.79 bits
10.3% →
OATER 5.05 bits
5.7% →
ANTIC 5.10 bits
5.6% →
GRACE 4.58 bits
5.1% →
CAROL 4.95 bits
4.6% →
ROANY 4.77 bits
4.3% →
RENAL 4.58 bits
3.5% →
MAYOR 4.86 bits
2.7% →
TRASH 4.93 bits
2.6% →
TRONE 4.20 bits

Research on SMILE

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

Optimal play

Opening with SMILE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,210 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.76 guesses at best and is rank #543 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.61, 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

One syllable Say it SMYL.

Rhymes with WHILE STYLE AISLE GUILE STILE

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SMILE is a kind of motion or communicate.

Synonyms smiling grin grinning

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SMILE sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 44 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A1); among the first words English learners study.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 3, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 93 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.7 of 5).

In a sentence

You have a great smile.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
You need to smile more.
© tatoeba.org contributor Hybrid (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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).