5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess A tier opener

STALE

Yes, STALE was the Wordle answer on November 6, 2022 (Wordle #505).

As an opener, it rules out about 96.7% of possible answers.

Open Solver with STALE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /steɪl/

Adjective

No longer fresh, in reference to food, urine, straw, wounds, etc.

Adjective

No longer fresh, new, or interesting, in reference to ideas and immaterial things; clichéd, hackneyed, dated.

Noun

Something stale; a loaf of bread or the like that is no longer fresh.

Verb

To make stale; to cause to go out of fashion or currency; to diminish the novelty or interest of, particularly by excessive exposure or consumption.

Alternative forms: stele, steal, steel, stail

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: November 6, 2022 (#505).

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

Wordle Observatory

How did this puzzle feel?

About the project

Add an anonymous result and difficulty rating to the public, aggregate research dataset.

We send only this answer word for puzzle verification, the puzzle number, result, difficulty vote, Hard Mode flag, timezone and a random one-puzzle receipt token. The Observatory stores no answer word, grid, guesses, account, email, IP-derived ID or reusable player identifier. The puzzle-specific receipt prevents duplicate submissions and permits withdrawal; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. See the privacy details.

How STALE performs as a guess

STALE is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,358 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 90.3% of games, misses completely in 9.7%, and leaves about 77 possible answers on average.

In the current bounded six-turn policy, it ranks #67 of 182 evaluated openers; exact misses rank first, then average guesses among wins.

In the previous complete v5 benchmark, it ranks #287 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.57 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.

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__L_ S in the 1st position and L in the 4th position _T__E T in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

Try next

IRONY DECOR RAYON TROUT GRICE CLOUD
Words starting with S Words ending with E

First-turn measures

5.74 Entropy (bits)
77 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
96.7% Avg ruled out
In the top 1% for first-turn entropy
0.21 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opener: v5 benchmark

How STALE 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.

3.57 Avg guesses
99.9% Win rate
0.71 Volatility
#287 v5 opener rank
In the complete v5 snapshot, STALE ranks #287 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
104
3 guesses
978
4 guesses
1,095
5 guesses
161
6 guesses
12
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.45 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AELST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
90%
Green tile
42%
All gray
10%

Example solver route

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

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches STALE in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

143 possible patterns. Top outcomes:

228
169
139
126
108
83
77
67
65
62
57
57
49
44
43
37
33
31
29
29
29
28
28
27
27
24
24
22
21
21

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing STALE:

10% chance
Suggested:
IRONY
7% chance
Suggested:
DECOR
6% chance
Suggested:
RAYON

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

9.7% →
IRONY 5.45 bits
7.2% →
DECOR 4.91 bits
5.9% →
RAYON 5.04 bits
5.3% →
TROUT 5.13 bits
4.6% →
GRICE 4.41 bits
3.5% →
CLOUD 4.48 bits
3.3% →
DETER 4.71 bits
2.8% →
LEPER 4.32 bits
2.8% →
TACIT 4.47 bits
2.6% →
AMBER 4.12 bits

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1T1A1L1E1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 6 points

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