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

SPICE

Yes, SPICE was the Wordle answer on August 22, 2023 (Wordle #794).

As an opener, it rules out about 94.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with SPICE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /spaɪs/

Noun

Aromatic or pungent plant matter (usually dried) used to season or flavor food.

Noun

The quality of being spicy.

“What spice level do you want for your pad thai? I recommend mild.”

Verb

To add spice or spices to; season.

Verb

To spice up.

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

Used once

Past Wordle answer: August 22, 2023 (#794).

See the full page for that puzzle: August 22, 2023 (#794).

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

Wordle Observatory · optional

Played this Wordle?

Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds

Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.

See the public data

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 SPICE performs as a guess

SPICE 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 84.0% of games, misses completely in 16.0%, and leaves about 140 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,890 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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__C_ S in the 1st position and C in the 4th position _P__E P in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe SPICE 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.

5.12 Entropy (bits)
140 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
94.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 89% of evaluated openers
0.83 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SPICE 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.

3.62 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#1,890 Rank among openers
Opening with SPICE 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 3.62 average. It ranks #1,890 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
84
3 guesses
933
4 guesses
1,145
5 guesses
177
6 guesses
13
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:
EIS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
42%
All gray
16%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I N G
S P I C E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SPICE in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

SPICE can come back 120 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

380 answers
300 answers
143 answers
139 answers
105 answers
81 answers
74 answers
71 answers
64 answers
59 answers
51 answers
46 answers
39 answers
39 answers
37 answers
36 answers
36 answers
36 answers
36 answers
27 answers
27 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1P3I1C3E1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Try next

TALON ALTER GLARE TIDAL SLANT CAROL

Strategy after playing SPICE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SPICE:

16% chance
Suggested:
TALON
13% chance
Suggested:
ALTER
6% chance
Suggested:
GLARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.0% →
TALON 5.82 bits
12.6% →
ALTER 5.39 bits
6.0% →
GLARE 4.55 bits
5.9% →
TIDAL 4.92 bits
4.4% →
SLANT 4.69 bits
3.4% →
CAROL 5.03 bits
3.1% →
SLART 4.33 bits
3.0% →
TRASH 4.76 bits
2.7% →
POUTY 4.65 bits
2.5% →
DINER 4.54 bits

Research on SPICE

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

Optimal play

Opening with SPICE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.63 guesses and ranks #1,028 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.77 guesses at best and is rank #750 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.63, 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 SPYS.

Rhymes with PRICE TWICE SLICE TRICE GRICE

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SPICE is a kind of compound or seasoning.

Synonyms zest

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SPICE sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 9 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B1); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with taste (4.7 of 5).

In a sentence

Variety is the spice of life.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Humor is the spice of life.
© tatoeba.org contributor rul (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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).