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

SPATE

Yes, SPATE was the Wordle answer on April 21, 2025 (Wordle #1402).

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /speɪt/

Noun

A (sudden) flood or inundation of water; specifically, a flood in or overflow of a river or other watercourse due to heavy rain or melting snow; (uncountable, archaic) flooding, inundation.

Noun

A sudden heavy downpour of rain.

Verb

To (suddenly) flood or inundate (a river or other watercourse) with water.

Verb

To (suddenly) rain heavily; to pour.

Alternative forms: spat

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

Etymology

The noun is derived from Middle English spate, spait (“a flood”), influenced by Scots spate (“torrent of water, flood; heavy downpour of rain; (figurative) bout of drinking; large crowd of people; flood of events, words, etc.”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it SPAYT.

Rhymes with GREAT STATE EIGHT PLATE SLATE

Related meanings

Synonyms lot deal mass mountain plenty mess

In a sentence

The river is in high spate.
© tatoeba.org contributor Dani6187 (CC BY 2.0 FR)
There has been a spate of thefts in our area recently.
© tatoeba.org contributor Dani6187 (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use SPATE in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 95.6% of possible answers.

Open Solver with SPATE 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: April 21, 2025 (#1402).

See the full page for that puzzle: April 21, 2025 (#1402).

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

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The Observatory retains the selected puzzle, result, rating, optional Hard Mode answer and a random one-puzzle receipt. It stores no answer word, grid, guesses, account, email, IP-derived ID or reusable player identifier.

How verification and withdrawal work

The answer word and timezone are used transiently to verify this page, then discarded. The receipt prevents duplicate submissions and lets this browser withdraw later; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. Read the full privacy details.

How SPATE performs as a guess

SPATE 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 87.6% of games, misses completely in 12.4%, and leaves about 104 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #220 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.57 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__T_ S in the 1st position and T in the 4th position _P__E P in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position SP_TE S in the 1st position, P in the 2nd position, T in the 4th position, and E in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe SPATE 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.

5.49 Entropy (bits)
104 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
95.6% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SPATE 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.

3.57 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#220 Rank among openers
Opening with SPATE left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.57 average. It ranks #220 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
98
3 guesses
985
4 guesses
1,111
5 guesses
146
6 guesses
12

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AEST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
42%
All gray
12%

Example solver route

R O A T E
C L A S P
S P A T E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SPATE in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

SPATE can come back 135 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

296 answers
220 answers
189 answers
119 answers
98 answers
86 answers
81 answers
69 answers
68 answers
67 answers
61 answers
47 answers
44 answers
38 answers
36 answers
35 answers
32 answers
29 answers
29 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
25 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1P3A1T1E1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Try next

COULD OLDER CAROL GOIER COURT REGAL

Strategy after playing SPATE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SPATE:

12% chance
Suggested:
COULD
9% chance
Suggested:
OLDER
8% chance
Suggested:
CAROL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

12.4% →
COULD 5.63 bits
9.2% →
OLDER 5.06 bits
7.9% →
CAROL 5.33 bits
5.0% →
GOIER 4.43 bits
4.1% →
COURT 5.05 bits
3.6% →
REGAL 4.64 bits
3.4% →
ENTER 4.67 bits
2.9% →
CRINE 4.18 bits
2.9% →
TALON 4.27 bits
2.8% →
SLINK 4.32 bits

Research on SPATE

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

Optimal play

Opening with SPATE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.61 guesses and ranks #286 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.73 guesses at best and is rank #105 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.57, at or below the proven-optimal 3.61, 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
SPATE 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 relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).