SPANK
SPANK is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈspæŋk/[ˈspæŋk]/ˈspeɪ̯ŋk/
- Verb
-
To beat, smack or slap a person's buttocks, with the bare hand or other object, as punishment, or for sexual gratification.
- Verb
-
To soundly defeat, to trounce.
- Noun
-
An instance of spanking, separately or part of a multiple blows-beating; a smack, swat, or slap.
- Noun
-
A slapping sound, as produced by spanking.
Alternative forms: spaink, spenk
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
Uncertain. Likely of Dutch or Low German origin. Compare North Frisian spanke (“to step with pride”), Saterland Frisian spankje (“to splash”), dialectal Dutch spanken (“to limp, hobble”), Dutch spankeren (“to run away quickly, gallop off”), German Low German spenkern (“to burst, explode, shatter, splash, spray”), Danish spanke (“to strut”), Swedish spånka (“to strut proudly”); originally, equivalent to span + -k. Compare also dialectal English spang (“to leap, bound; shoot out, fling”).
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it SPANGK.
Rhymes with THANK FRANK BLANK DRANK PRANK
Related meanings
Synonyms paddle
In a sentence
I'm going to spank you.
I spank my kids when needed.
Use SPANK in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 90.4% of possible answers.
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
No completed appearanceNo appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.
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 SPANK performs as a guess
SPANK 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 75.3% of games, misses completely in 24.7%, and leaves about 229 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,335 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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 SPANK 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 SPANK 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 SPANK in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
SPANK can come back 98 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 SPANK; 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 SPANK
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to SPANK.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing SPANK:
Research on SPANK
Game-tree analysis and word research for SPANK, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with SPANK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,570 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.82 guesses at best and is rank #1,892 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, 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.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- SPANK 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.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 8, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 71 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with touch (4.0 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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).