STINK
Yes, STINK has been the Wordle answer on July 3, 2021 (Wordle #14) and October 19, 2026 (Wordle #1948).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /stɪŋk/
- Verb
-
To have a strong bad smell.
- Verb
-
To be greatly inferior; to perform badly.
“That movie stinks. I didn't even stay for the end.”
- Noun
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A strong bad smell.
- Noun
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A complaint or objection.
“If you don't make a stink about the problem, nothing will be done.”
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English stinken, from Old English stincan, from Proto-Germanic *stinkwaną, from Proto-Indo-European *stengʷ-, *stegʷ- (“to push, thrust, strike”). Cognate with West Frisian stjonke (“to stink”), Dutch stinken (“to stink”), German stinken (“to stink”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk stinke (“to stink”), Swedish stinka (“to stink”), Icelandic stökkva (“to spring, leap, jump”).
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it STIHNGK.
Rhymes with THINK DRINK BLINK BRINK TWINK
Related meanings
Synonyms blow suck stench
In a sentence
He doesn't stink at all.
It really does stink in here.
Use STINK in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 90.7% 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 2 timesPast Wordle answer: July 3, 2021 (#14); October 19, 2026 (#1948).
See the full page for each puzzle: July 3, 2021 (#14); October 19, 2026 (#1948).
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 →STINK in Connections
1 recorded appearance in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #811
Reveal this appearance's category
STINK appeared in NOT BE GOOD (green group).
How STINK performs as a guess
STINK 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 75.0% of games, misses completely in 25.0%, and leaves about 222 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,432 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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 STINK 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 STINK 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 STINK in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
STINK can come back 97 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 STINK; 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 STINK
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to STINK.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing STINK:
Research on STINK
Game-tree analysis and word research for STINK, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with STINK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,893 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.83 guesses at best and is rank #2,295 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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
- STINK 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.
- Learner level
- Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 5, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 42 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with smell (4.5 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).