STAGE
Yes, STAGE was the Wordle answer on February 9, 2023 (Wordle #600).
As an opener, it rules out about 95.6% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /steɪd͡ʒ//stɑːʒ/
- Noun
-
A phase.
“He is in the recovery stage of his illness.”
- Noun
-
One of the portions of a device (such as a rocket or thermonuclear weapon) which are used or activated in a particular order, one after another.
“The first stage of the launcher burned out and separated after successfully boosting the payload onto a suborbital trajectory, but the engine of the upper stage failed to ignite to place the satellite into orbit.”
- Verb
-
To produce on a stage, to perform a play.
“The local theater group will stage "Pride and Prejudice".”
- Verb
-
To arrange in a manner intended to deceive.
“The salesman's demonstration of the new cleanser was staged to make it appear highly effective.”
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: February 9, 2023 (#600).
See the full page for that puzzle: February 9, 2023 (#600).
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 STAGE performs as a guess
STAGE 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 88.0% of games, misses completely in 12.0%, and leaves about 105 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,067 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe STAGE 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 STAGE 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 STAGE in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
STAGE can come back 108 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 STAGE; 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 STAGE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to STAGE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing STAGE:
Research on STAGE
Game-tree analysis and word research for STAGE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with STAGE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,092 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.78 guesses at best and is rank #957 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 3.66, 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, STAGE is a kind of period or state.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- STAGE sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 126 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Learner level
- Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A1); among the first words English learners study.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 6, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 83 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.0 of 5).
In a sentence
Just get off the stage.
Come on up to the stage.
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; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).