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

SNUFF

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

As an opener, it rules out about 81.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /snʌf//snɐf//snʊf/

Noun

Finely ground or pulverized tobacco (or other plant derivative) intended for use by being sniffed or snorted into the nose.

Noun

Fine-ground or minced tobacco, dry or moistened, intended for use by placing a pinch behind the lip or beneath the tongue.

Verb

To inhale through the nose.

Verb

To turn up the nose and inhale air, as an expression of contempt; hence, to take offense.

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 SNUFF performs as a guess

SNUFF 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 61.5% of games, misses completely in 38.5%, and leaves about 442 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,005 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.84 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.

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

First-turn measures

All four describe SNUFF 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.

3.43 Entropy (bits)
442 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
81.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 6% of evaluated openers
2.52 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SNUFF 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.

3.84 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#13,005 Rank among openers
Opening with SNUFF solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.84 average. It ranks #13,005 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
26
3 guesses
687
4 guesses
1,283
5 guesses
341
6 guesses
16
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:
NSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
62%
Green tile
26%
All gray
38%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I M Y
S K U N K
S N U F F

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SNUFF in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

SNUFF can come back 52 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

914 answers
298 answers
226 answers
161 answers
155 answers
89 answers
72 answers
55 answers
44 answers
37 answers
31 answers
28 answers
26 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
9 answers
6 answers
5 answers
4 answers
4 answers
4 answers
4 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1N1U1F4F4
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing SNUFF

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SNUFF:

39% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
13% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
10% chance
Suggested:
PLATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

38.5%
ROATE 6.10 bits
12.6%
ARIEL 5.40 bits
9.5%
PLATE 5.51 bits
6.8%
ROATE 5.55 bits
6.5%
MARLE 4.76 bits
3.7%
ARIEL 5.41 bits
3.0%
CLOTE 5.19 bits
2.3%
WAITE 4.47 bits
1.9%
ARIEL 4.79 bits
1.6%
MORSE 3.67 bits

Research on SNUFF

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

Optimal play

Opening with SNUFF, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.89 guesses and ranks #13,666 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.03 guesses at best and is rank #6,541 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.84, at or below the proven-optimal 3.89, 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 SNUHF.

Rhymes with STUFF TOUGH ROUGH BLUFF FLUFF

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SNUFF is a kind of char or touch.

Synonyms SNIFF

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SNUFF sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.

In a sentence

But who would like to buy such a bad snuff?
© tatoeba.org contributor Piteris (CC BY 2.0 FR)
This translation is not quite up to snuff.
© 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).