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

SPIAL

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈspaɪəl/

Noun

Espionage.

Noun

A spy.

Alternative forms: spyale, spiall

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 SPIAL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SPIAL 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 83.6% of games, misses completely in 16.4%, and leaves about 143 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #666 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.59 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 SPIAL 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.

5.07 Entropy (bits)
143 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 87% of evaluated openers
0.88 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SPIAL 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.

3.59 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#666 Rank among openers
Opening with SPIAL 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 3.59 average. It ranks #666 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
66
3 guesses
1,044
4 guesses
1,048
5 guesses
180
6 guesses
15
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

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AILS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
34%
All gray
16%

Feedback distribution

SPIAL can come back 114 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

389 answers
291 answers
152 answers
131 answers
101 answers
94 answers
91 answers
83 answers
68 answers
54 answers
51 answers
48 answers
47 answers
46 answers
33 answers
32 answers
32 answers
31 answers
28 answers
28 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1P3I1A1L1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing SPIAL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SPIAL:

16% chance
Suggested:
TONER
12% chance
Suggested:
TRONE
6% chance
Suggested:
RONTE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.4%
TONER 6.10 bits
12.3%
TRONE 5.46 bits
6.4%
RONTE 5.34 bits
5.5%
COURE 5.18 bits
4.3%
BLATE 4.47 bits
4.0%
TONER 5.10 bits
3.8%
TRONE 5.00 bits
3.5%
TORSE 5.15 bits
2.9%
POREY 5.06 bits
2.3%
CRATE 4.10 bits

Research on SPIAL

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

Optimal play

Opening with SPIAL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.65 guesses and ranks #1,813 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 #430 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, 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.

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it SPYUHL. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.