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

SNAKE

Yes, SNAKE was the Wordle answer on January 27, 2024 (Wordle #952).

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /sneɪk/

Noun

Any of the suborder Serpentes of legless reptiles with long, thin bodies and fork-shaped tongues.

Noun

A person who acts deceitfully for personal or social gain; a treacherous person.

Verb

To follow or move in a winding route.

“The path snaked through the forest.”

Verb

To steal slyly.

“He snaked my DVD!”

Alternative forms: snek

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

From Middle English snake, from Old English snaca (“snake, serpent, reptile”), from Proto-West Germanic *snakō (“slider, snake”), from *snakan (“to creep, slide”), related to Old High German snahhan (“to sneak, slide”). Compare also Proto-Germanic *snēkô (“creeper, crawler”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it SNAYK.

Rhymes with BREAK SHAKE STAKE AWAKE STEAK

Related meanings

Synonyms serpent

In a sentence

How long is that snake?
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
The snake is in the building.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use SNAKE in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 94.7% of possible answers.

Open Solver with SNAKE Open Word Finder

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 once

Past Wordle answer: January 27, 2024 (#952).

See the full page for that puzzle: January 27, 2024 (#952).

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

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SNAKE in Connections

7 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . Showing the 5 most recent. A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.

How SNAKE performs as a guess

SNAKE is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 86.2% of games, misses completely in 13.8%, and leaves about 126 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,967 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.

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__K_ S in the 1st position and K in the 4th position _N__E N in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position SN_KE S in the 1st position, N in the 2nd position, K in the 4th position, and E in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe SNAKE 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.

5.14 Entropy (bits)
126 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
94.7% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SNAKE 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.

3.67 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#4,967 Rank among openers
Opening with SNAKE left 4 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 3.67 average. It ranks #4,967 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
78
3 guesses
851
4 guesses
1,206
5 guesses
195
6 guesses
19

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AENS

Feedback chances

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

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L U M P
D R A N K
S N A K E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SNAKE in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

SNAKE can come back 110 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

330 answers
245 answers
208 answers
136 answers
117 answers
101 answers
79 answers
77 answers
72 answers
65 answers
60 answers
46 answers
43 answers
39 answers
37 answers
34 answers
32 answers
31 answers
29 answers
29 answers
29 answers
28 answers
25 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1N1A1K5E1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Try next

MOULT DETER CAROL GOIER IRONY RATEL

Strategy after playing SNAKE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SNAKE:

14% chance
Suggested:
MOULT
10% chance
Suggested:
DETER
9% chance
Suggested:
CAROL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.8% →
MOULT 5.56 bits
10.3% →
DETER 5.45 bits
8.7% →
CAROL 5.22 bits
5.7% →
GOIER 4.35 bits
4.9% →
IRONY 4.93 bits
4.2% →
RATEL 4.60 bits
3.3% →
SPILT 4.51 bits
3.2% →
TANGO 4.21 bits
3.0% →
HOIST 4.69 bits
2.7% →
LINER 4.36 bits

Research on SNAKE

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

Optimal play

Opening with SNAKE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,938 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 SNAKE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SNAKE sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 17 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 5, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 94 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.4 of 5).

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).