SPICY
Yes, SPICY was the Wordle answer on September 30, 2021 (Wordle #103).
As an opener, it rules out about 90.2% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈspaɪsi/
- Adjective
-
Of, pertaining to, or containing spice.
“He prepared a spicy casserole.”
- Adjective
-
Of a flavor, provoking a burning sensation due to the presence of capsaicin or a similar chemical.
“This curry is too spicy for me. I can't eat it.”
Alternative forms: spicey
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: September 30, 2021 (#103).
See the full page for that puzzle: September 30, 2021 (#103).
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 SPICY performs as a guess
SPICY 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 73.5% of games, misses completely in 26.5%, and leaves about 233 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,352 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 SPICY 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 SPICY 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 SPICY in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
SPICY can come back 92 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 SPICY; 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 SPICY
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to SPICY.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing SPICY:
Research on SPICY
Game-tree analysis and word research for SPICY, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with SPICY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,995 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.85 guesses at best and is rank #2,699 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
- SPICY sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 6 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 (4.5 of 5).
In a sentence
It is not very spicy.
It's not really that spicy.
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).