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

STAKE

Yes, STAKE was the Wordle answer on August 26, 2024 (Wordle #1164).

As an opener, it rules out about 94.9% of possible answers.

Open Solver with STAKE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /steɪk/

Noun

A piece of wood or other material, usually long and slender, pointed at one end so as to be easily driven into the ground as a marker or a support or stay.

“We have surveyor's stakes at all four corners of this field, to mark exactly its borders.”

Noun

A piece of wood driven in the ground, placed in the middle of the court, that is used as the finishing point after scoring 12 hoops in croquet.

Verb

To fasten, support, defend, or delineate with stakes.

“to stake vines or plants”

Verb

To pierce or wound with a stake.

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: August 26, 2024 (#1164).

See the full page for that puzzle: August 26, 2024 (#1164).

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

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How STAKE performs as a guess

STAKE 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 86.8% of games, misses completely in 13.2%, and leaves about 120 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,295 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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___E S in the 1st position and E in the 5th position S__K_ S in the 1st position and K in the 4th position _T__E T in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe STAKE 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.

5.17 Entropy (bits)
120 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
94.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 91% of evaluated openers
0.78 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How STAKE 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.

3.66 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#4,295 Rank among openers
Opening with STAKE left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.66 average. It ranks #4,295 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
68
3 guesses
872
4 guesses
1,218
5 guesses
181
6 guesses
13
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:
AEST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
87%
Green tile
40%
All gray
13%

Example solver route

R O A T E
B E V E L
S T A G E
S T A K E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches STAKE in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

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

313 answers
232 answers
200 answers
146 answers
138 answers
91 answers
91 answers
88 answers
66 answers
58 answers
48 answers
45 answers
36 answers
36 answers
36 answers
35 answers
33 answers
32 answers
31 answers
30 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1T1A1K5E1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

COULD OLDER CAROL TROUT GOIER REGAL

Strategy after playing STAKE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing STAKE:

13% chance
Suggested:
COULD
10% chance
Suggested:
OLDER
8% chance
Suggested:
CAROL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.2% →
COULD 5.51 bits
9.8% →
OLDER 5.03 bits
8.4% →
CAROL 5.27 bits
6.1% →
TROUT 5.10 bits
5.8% →
GOIER 4.46 bits
3.8% →
REGAL 4.63 bits
3.8% →
DETER 4.76 bits
3.7% →
TAINT 4.42 bits
2.8% →
SPOIL 4.16 bits
2.4% →
DRICE 4.17 bits

Research on STAKE

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

Optimal play

Opening with STAKE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,458 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.82 guesses at best and is rank #1,866 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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 STAYK.

Rhymes with BREAK SHAKE SNAKE AWAKE STEAK

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, STAKE is a kind of part or sign.

Synonyms back game post interest bet adventure

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
STAKE sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 14 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 10, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 55 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.0 of 5).

In a sentence

There is more at stake.
© tatoeba.org contributor Eccles17 (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Your life is at stake.
© tatoeba.org contributor ddnktr (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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).