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

SNELL

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /snɛl/

Adjective

Quick, smart; sharp, active, brisk or nimble; lively.

Adjective

Quick-witted; clever.

Adverb

Alternative form of snelly.

Noun

A short line of horsehair, gut, monofilament, etc., by which a fishhook or lure is attached to a longer (and usually heavier) line.

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 SNELL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SNELL 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 82.3% of games, misses completely in 17.7%, and leaves about 183 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,309 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.75 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 SNELL 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.

4.60 Entropy (bits)
183 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 58% of evaluated openers
1.35 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SNELL 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.

3.75 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#9,309 Rank among openers
Opening with SNELL left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.75 average. It ranks #9,309 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
48
3 guesses
816
4 guesses
1,196
5 guesses
268
6 guesses
24
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

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ELNS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
34%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

SNELL can come back 80 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

421 answers
371 answers
194 answers
118 answers
106 answers
106 answers
100 answers
91 answers
71 answers
62 answers
61 answers
46 answers
43 answers
40 answers
39 answers
38 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
22 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1N1E1L1L1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing SNELL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SNELL:

18% chance
Suggested:
RATIO
16% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
8% chance
Suggested:
RAINY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.7%
RATIO 5.76 bits
15.6%
ROATE 5.34 bits
8.2%
RAINY 5.05 bits
5.0%
ROAST 4.64 bits
4.5%
CLAIM 4.82 bits
4.5%
TRASH 4.84 bits
4.2%
AINEE 4.34 bits
3.8%
GEARE 4.43 bits
3.0%
ROAST 4.75 bits
2.6%
PARTE 4.51 bits

Research on SNELL

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

Optimal play

Opening with SNELL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,519 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.91 guesses at best and is rank #4,514 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.75, at or below the proven-optimal 3.78, 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 SNEHL.

Rhymes with HOTEL SMELL SHELL SPELL INTEL

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SNELL 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).