Possible answer Not used yet B tier for first-turn info

SPIED

SPIED is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.

As an opener, it rules out about 93.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

simple past and past participle of spy

Alternative forms: spyed

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

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 SPIED performs as a guess

SPIED 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 82.6% of games, misses completely in 17.4%, and leaves about 152 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,564 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.63 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 SPIED 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.

4.96 Entropy (bits)
152 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
93.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 81% of evaluated openers
0.99 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SPIED 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.

3.63 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#2,564 Rank among openers
Opening with SPIED left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.63 average. It ranks #2,564 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
67
3 guesses
922
4 guesses
1,188
5 guesses
163
6 guesses
12
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)
83%
Green tile
40%
All gray
17%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S I L E N
S H I E D
S P I E D

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SPIED in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

SPIED can come back 107 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

413 answers
287 answers
153 answers
140 answers
119 answers
82 answers
80 answers
72 answers
66 answers
66 answers
66 answers
59 answers
44 answers
43 answers
43 answers
33 answers
30 answers
28 answers
26 answers
25 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1P3I1E1D2
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing SPIED

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SPIED:

17% chance
Suggested:
CAROL
12% chance
Suggested:
LEARE
6% chance
Suggested:
OATER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.4%
CAROL 6.06 bits
12.1%
LEARE 5.49 bits
6.4%
OATER 4.36 bits
5.9%
TRAIN 5.05 bits
5.0%
ROAST 4.60 bits
3.5%
TRASH 4.85 bits
3.4%
CLARY 4.63 bits
3.0%
COALY 4.80 bits
2.8%
DANDY 4.57 bits
2.8%
DEARE 4.77 bits

Research on SPIED

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

Optimal play

Opening with SPIED, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,066 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with SPIED can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.63, at or below the proven-optimal 3.64, 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 SPYD.

Rhymes with TRIED GUIDE ASIDE PRIDE SLIDE

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SPIED is a kind of operative or witness.

Synonyms spot SIGHT SNOOP stag

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SPIED sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.9 of 5).

In a sentence

I don't like being spied on.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I knew that they spied on me.
© tatoeba.org contributor dzouras (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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).