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

SQUID

Yes, SQUID was the Wordle answer on January 20, 2025 (Wordle #1311).

As an opener, it rules out about 85.9% of possible answers.

Open Solver with SQUID Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /skwɪd/

Noun

Any of several carnivorous marine cephalopod mollusks, of the order Teuthida, having a mantle, eight arms, and a pair of tentacles

Noun

A fishhook with a piece of bright lead, bone, or other substance fastened on its shank to imitate a squid.

Verb

To fish with a squid fishhook.

Verb

To cause squidding (an improper, partial, parachute inflation, that results in the sides of the parachute folding in on the center, and pulsating back and forth).

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: January 20, 2025 (#1311).

See the full page for that puzzle: January 20, 2025 (#1311).

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

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How SQUID performs as a guess

SQUID 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 67.6% of games, misses completely in 32.4%, and leaves about 334 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,470 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.80 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___D S in the 1st position and D in the 5th position S__I_ S in the 1st position and I in the 4th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe SQUID 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.

3.83 Entropy (bits)
334 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
85.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 16% of evaluated openers
2.12 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SQUID 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.

3.80 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#11,470 Rank among openers
Opening with SQUID left 3 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 3.80 average. It ranks #11,470 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
31
3 guesses
750
4 guesses
1,257
5 guesses
289
6 guesses
23
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:
ISU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
68%
Green tile
30%
All gray
32%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I M Y
S Q U I B
S Q U I D

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SQUID in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

SQUID can come back 59 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

769 answers
279 answers
201 answers
137 answers
131 answers
128 answers
86 answers
82 answers
66 answers
57 answers
40 answers
39 answers
33 answers
30 answers
26 answers
25 answers
21 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
7 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1Q10U1I1D2
Total: 15 points

Words With Friends

Total: 16 points

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

Try next

CARLE TRINE PLATE PRATE MARLE DROLE

Strategy after playing SQUID

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SQUID:

32% chance
Suggested:
CARLE
12% chance
Suggested:
TRINE
8% chance
Suggested:
PLATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

32.4% →
CARLE 6.20 bits
11.8% →
TRINE 5.40 bits
8.5% →
PLATE 5.40 bits
5.8% →
PRATE 5.46 bits
5.5% →
MARLE 4.82 bits
5.4% →
DROLE 5.42 bits
3.6% →
TRACE 4.85 bits
3.5% →
CARNE 4.93 bits
2.8% →
LEANT 4.01 bits
2.4% →
DROLE 4.46 bits

Research on SQUID

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

Optimal play

Opening with SQUID, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.84 guesses and ranks #12,444 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 SQUID can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.80, at or below the proven-optimal 3.84, 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 SKWIHD.

Rhymes with UNDID REDID REBID

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SQUID is a kind of seafood or shellfish.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SQUID sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 3 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 7, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 92 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.1 of 5).

In a sentence

A squid has ten legs.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I want to eat squid this evening.
© tatoeba.org contributor szilviez (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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).