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

STARK

Yes, STARK was the Wordle answer on June 3, 2024 (Wordle #1080).

As an opener, it rules out about 93.7% of possible answers.

Open Solver with STARK Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /stɑɹk//stɑːk/

Adjective

Severe; violent; fierce (now usually in describing the weather).

Adjective

Stiff, rigid.

Adverb

Starkly; entirely, absolutely.

“He's gone stark, staring mad.”

Verb

To stiffen.

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: June 3, 2024 (#1080).

See the full page for that puzzle: June 3, 2024 (#1080).

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

Wordle Observatory · optional

Played this Wordle?

Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds

Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.

See the public data

The Observatory retains the selected puzzle, result, rating, optional Hard Mode answer and a random one-puzzle receipt. It stores no answer word, grid, guesses, account, email, IP-derived ID or reusable player identifier.

How verification and withdrawal work

The answer word and timezone are used transiently to verify this page, then discarded. The receipt prevents duplicate submissions and lets this browser withdraw later; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. Read the full privacy details.

How STARK performs as a guess

STARK 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 83.2% of games, misses completely in 16.8%, and leaves about 150 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,110 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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___K S in the 1st position and K in the 5th position S__R_ S in the 1st position and R in the 4th position _T__K T in the 2nd position and K in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe STARK 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.

4.94 Entropy (bits)
150 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
93.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 80% of evaluated openers
1.00 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How STARK 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#3,110 Rank among openers
Opening with STARK left 4 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 3.64 average. It ranks #3,110 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
55
3 guesses
946
4 guesses
1,152
5 guesses
181
6 guesses
15
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
1 vowels
Common:
ARST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
32%
All gray
17%

Example solver route

R O A T E
G R I S T
S T A R K

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches STARK in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

STARK can come back 103 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

398 answers
252 answers
207 answers
174 answers
110 answers
100 answers
93 answers
83 answers
63 answers
52 answers
39 answers
34 answers
34 answers
33 answers
32 answers
32 answers
30 answers
26 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
25 answers
22 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1T1A1R1K5
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

MOILE GOIER CLINE TITLE PARER TRIBE

Strategy after playing STARK

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing STARK:

17% chance
Suggested:
MOILE
11% chance
Suggested:
GOIER
9% chance
Suggested:
CLINE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.8% →
MOILE 5.92 bits
10.6% →
GOIER 4.99 bits
8.7% →
CLINE 5.31 bits
7.3% →
TITLE 5.17 bits
4.6% →
PARER 4.44 bits
4.2% →
CLINE 4.38 bits
3.9% →
CLINE 5.14 bits
3.5% →
TRIBE 4.60 bits
2.7% →
MOILE 4.60 bits
2.2% →
CLINE 4.57 bits

Research on STARK

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

Optimal play

Opening with STARK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,331 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.80 guesses at best and is rank #1,286 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, 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 STAHRK.

Rhymes with SHARK SPARK QUARK

Related meanings

Synonyms perfect complete pure severe GROSS bare

Opposites FANCY moderate conditional

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
STARK sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 10 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 11, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 28 of 100. Raters found it difficult to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (1.8 of 5).

In a sentence

There is a stark difference between the two.
© tatoeba.org contributor rul (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Tom was standing there stark naked.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (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).