STASH
Yes, STASH was the Wordle answer on February 16, 2024 (Wordle #972).
As an opener, it rules out about 88.7% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /stæʃ/
- Noun
-
A collection, sometimes hidden.
“They had quite a stash of food saved up for emergencies.”
- Noun
-
A place where drugs are stored.
“The dealers managed to store the dope in the stash just in time to avoid being caught by the police.”
- Verb
-
To hide or store away for later use.
“He stashed his liquor in the cabinet under the bar.”
Alternative forms: 'stache, stache
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 16, 2024 (#972).
See the full page for that puzzle: February 16, 2024 (#972).
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 STASH performs as a guess
STASH 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 72.8% of games, misses completely in 27.2%, and leaves about 269 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,586 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.75 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 STASH 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 STASH 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 STASH in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
STASH can come back 76 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 STASH; 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 STASH
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to STASH.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing STASH:
Research on STASH
Game-tree analysis and word research for STASH, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with STASH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,759 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with STASH can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.75, at or below the proven-optimal 3.80, 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, STASH is a kind of store or save.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- STASH 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 (3.0 of 5).
In a sentence
I have a little stash.
Where do you keep your stash of books?
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).