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

SMOTE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 95.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /sməʊt//smoʊt/

Verb

simple past of smite

Verb

past participle of smite

Alternative forms: smot

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 SMOTE performs as a guess

SMOTE 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 87.1% of games, misses completely in 12.9%, and leaves about 118 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,935 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.65 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 SMOTE 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.

5.19 Entropy (bits)
118 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
95.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 92% of evaluated openers
0.75 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SMOTE 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.

3.65 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#3,935 Rank among openers
Opening with SMOTE left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.65 average. It ranks #3,935 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
80
3 guesses
876
4 guesses
1,195
5 guesses
181
6 guesses
20
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:
EOST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
87%
Green tile
40%
All gray
13%

Example solver route

R O A T E
Q U O T E
S M O T E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SMOTE in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

SMOTE can come back 113 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

307 answers
265 answers
151 answers
141 answers
122 answers
104 answers
91 answers
78 answers
69 answers
60 answers
54 answers
52 answers
49 answers
43 answers
41 answers
40 answers
33 answers
33 answers
29 answers
28 answers
25 answers
25 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
17 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1M3O1T1E1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing SMOTE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SMOTE:

13% chance
Suggested:
CAIRN
11% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
6% chance
Suggested:
GEARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

12.9%
CAIRN 5.93 bits
11.2%
ARIEL 5.19 bits
6.4%
GEARE 4.54 bits
5.9%
LAIRY 4.87 bits
5.1%
TAINT 5.19 bits
4.4%
ARIEL 4.59 bits
3.8%
RAINY 4.61 bits
3.3%
CLARY 4.40 bits
2.9%
LAIRY 4.55 bits
2.5%
BRASH 4.45 bits

Research on SMOTE

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

Optimal play

Opening with SMOTE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.63 guesses and ranks #931 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 SMOTE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.65; proven optimal play reaches 3.63. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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 SMOHT. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SMOTE is a kind of hit or move.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SMOTE 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.

In a sentence

They took the reed and smote him on the head.
© tatoeba.org contributor Cangarejo (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).