STALK
STALK is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /stɔːk//stoːk//staːk/
- Noun
-
The stem or main axis of a plant.
“a stalk of wheat, rye, or oats; the stalks of maize or hemp”
- Noun
-
The petiole, pedicel, or peduncle of a plant.
“grape stalks”
- Verb
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To approach slowly and quietly in order not to be discovered when getting closer.
- Verb
-
To (try to) follow or contact someone constantly, often resulting in harassment.ᵂᵖ
“My ex-girlfriend is stalking me.”
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English stalken, from Old English *stealcian (as in bestealcian (“to move stealthily”), stealcung (“stalking”)), from Proto-West Germanic *stalukōn, from Proto-Germanic *stalukōną (“to stalk, move stealthily”) (compare Dutch stelkeren, stolkeren (“to tip-toe, tread carefully”), Danish stalke (“to high step, stalk”), Norwegian dialectal stalka (“to trudge”)), from *stalkaz, *stelkaz (compare Old English stealc (“steep”), Old Norse stelkr, stjalkr (“knot (bird), red sandpiper”)), from…
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it STAWK.
Related meanings
Synonyms stem STRAW stalking HAUNT
In a sentence
They stalk us from every direction.
All she left of the apple was the stalk.
Use STALK in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 92.9% of possible answers.
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
No completed appearanceNo appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.
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 →STALK in Connections
4 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #520
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STALK appeared in VEGETABLE UNITS (green group).
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· Puzzle #252
Reveal this appearance's category
STALK appeared in PURSUE (green group).
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· Puzzle #224
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STALK appeared in UNITS OF VEGETABLES (purple group).
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· Puzzle #87
Reveal this appearance's category
STALK appeared in FLOWER PARTS (green group).
How STALK performs as a guess
STALK is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 80.5% of games, misses completely in 19.5%, and leaves about 168 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,503 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.61 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 STALK 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 STALK 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 STALK in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
STALK can come back 106 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 STALK; 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 STALK
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to STALK.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing STALK:
Research on STALK
Game-tree analysis and word research for STALK, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with STALK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #3,086 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 #874 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.61, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- STALK 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.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.4 of 5).
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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).