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

SPECT

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

Aphetic form of expect.

Alternative forms: 'spect

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

Use SPECT in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 93.2% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No 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.

How SPECT performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SPECT 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 83.3% of games, misses completely in 16.7%, and leaves about 163 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #992 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.60 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 SPECT 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.

4.98 Entropy (bits)
163 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.2% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SPECT 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.

3.60 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#992 Rank among openers
Opening with SPECT solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.67 means those games clustered within about 0.67 of a guess of the 3.60 average. It ranks #992 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
65
3 guesses
988
4 guesses
1,138
5 guesses
152
6 guesses
11

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
EST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
34%
All gray
17%

Feedback distribution

SPECT can come back 112 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

399 answers
380 answers
119 answers
107 answers
103 answers
90 answers
76 answers
72 answers
65 answers
60 answers
54 answers
52 answers
50 answers
49 answers
48 answers
38 answers
27 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1P3E1C3T1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing SPECT

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SPECT:

17% chance
Suggested:
ADORN
16% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
5% chance
Suggested:
ROANY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.7% →
ADORN 5.78 bits
15.9% →
RAILE 5.45 bits
5.0% →
ROANY 5.02 bits
4.5% →
CAIRN 5.35 bits
4.3% →
TARTE 4.85 bits
3.8% →
LAIRY 4.73 bits
3.2% →
ARIEL 4.29 bits
3.0% →
LAIRY 4.69 bits
2.7% →
BASIS 4.85 bits
2.5% →
PLIER 4.76 bits

Research on SPECT

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

Optimal play

Opening with SPECT, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.65 guesses and ranks #1,567 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.76 guesses at best and is rank #417 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, at or below the proven-optimal 3.65, 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
SPECT 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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).