SNEAK
Yes, SNEAK was the Wordle answer on October 28, 2022 (Wordle #496).
As an opener, it rules out about 93.7% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /sniːk/
- Noun
-
One who sneaks; one who moves stealthily to acquire an item or information.
“My little brother is such a sneak; yesterday I caught him trying to look through my diary.”
- Noun
-
The act of sneaking
- Verb
-
To creep or go stealthily; to come or go while trying to avoid detection, as a person who does not wish to be seen.
“He decided to sneak into the kitchen for a second cookie while his mom was on the phone.”
- Verb
-
To take something stealthily without permission.
“I went to sneak a chocolate but my dad caught me.”
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
Used oncePast Wordle answer: October 28, 2022 (#496).
See the full page for that puzzle: October 28, 2022 (#496).
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 SNEAK performs as a guess
SNEAK 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 86.2% of games, misses completely in 13.8%, and leaves about 149 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,688 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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 SNEAK 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 SNEAK 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 SNEAK in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
SNEAK can come back 102 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 SNEAK; 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 SNEAK
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to SNEAK.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing SNEAK:
Research on SNEAK
Game-tree analysis and word research for SNEAK, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with SNEAK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #5,213 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 SNEAK can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, SNEAK is a kind of actor or intruder.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- SNEAK sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 10 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Learner level
- Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.9 of 5).
In a sentence
Don't sneak up on people.
I sneak into the house.
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; Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).