SPOOK
SPOOK is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.
As an opener, it rules out about 81.8% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /spuːk//spʊk/
- Noun
-
A ghost or phantom.
“The building was haunted by a couple of spooks.”
- Noun
-
A hobgoblin.
- Verb
-
To frighten or make nervous (especially by startling).
“The hunters were spooked when the black cat crossed their path. The movement in the bushes spooked the deer and they ran.”
- Verb
-
To become frightened (by something startling).
“The deer spooked at the sound of the dogs.”
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
Not used yetNo past answer date found.
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
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 dataThank you. Your result now helps describe this puzzle.
See what the public sample says →How SPOOK performs as a guess
SPOOK 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 60.9% of games, misses completely in 39.1%, and leaves about 433 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,367 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.82 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 SPOOK 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 SPOOK 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 SPOOK in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
SPOOK can come back 67 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 SPOOK; 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 SPOOK
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to SPOOK.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing SPOOK:
Research on SPOOK
Game-tree analysis and word research for SPOOK, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with SPOOK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.83 guesses and ranks #12,021 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.96 guesses at best and is rank #5,419 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.82, at or below the proven-optimal 3.83, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, SPOOK is a kind of actor or shadow.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- SPOOK 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); 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).