STEEL
Yes, STEEL was the Wordle answer on April 13, 2024 (Wordle #1029).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /stiːl/[stiːɫ]
- Noun
-
An artificial metal produced from iron, harder and more elastic than elemental iron; used figuratively as a symbol of hardness.
- Noun
-
Any item made of this metal, particularly including:
- Adjective
-
Made of steel.
- Adjective
-
Similar to steel in color, strength, or the like; steely.
Alternative forms: steele
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English stele, stel, from Old English stīele, from Proto-West Germanic *stahlī (“something made of steel”), enlargement of *stahl (“steel”), from Proto-Germanic *stahlą, from *stah- or *stag- (“to be firm, rigid”), from Proto-Indo-European *stak- (“to stay, to be firm”). Compare Scots stele, Yola stehli, German Stahl, Dutch staal, Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish stål.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it STEEL.
Rhymes with WHEEL IDEAL STEAL KNEEL SPIEL
Related meanings
Synonyms BRAND SWORD BLADE NERVE
In a sentence
It is made of steel.
He has a will of steel.
Use STEEL in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 93.6% 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
Used oncePast Wordle answer: April 13, 2024 (#1029).
See the full page for that puzzle: April 13, 2024 (#1029).
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
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 dataThank you. Your result now helps describe this puzzle.
See what the public sample says →STEEL in Connections
3 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
-
· Puzzle #809
Reveal this appearance's category
STEEL appeared in ASSOCIATED WITH HARDNESS (blue group).
-
· Puzzle #774
Reveal this appearance's category
STEEL appeared in HOMOPHONES OF SYNONYMS FOR “NAB” (purple group).
-
· Puzzle #303
Reveal this appearance's category
STEEL appeared in WORDS BEFORE “DRUM” (purple group).
How STEEL performs as a guess
STEEL 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 82.4% of games, misses completely in 17.6%, and leaves about 152 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,819 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.67 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 STEEL 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 STEEL 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 STEEL in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
STEEL can come back 105 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 STEEL; 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 STEEL
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to STEEL.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing STEEL:
Research on STEEL
Game-tree analysis and word research for STEEL, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with STEEL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #4,308 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 STEEL can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, at or below the proven-optimal 3.69, 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
- STEEL sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 51 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 B1); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 8, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 80 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.8 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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).