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

STONE

Yes, STONE was the Wordle answer on September 21, 2023 (Wordle #824).

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /stəʊ̯n//stoʊ̯n//stɐʉ̯n/

Noun

A hard earthen substance that can form rocks; especially, such substance when regarded as a building material.

Noun

A piece of such material: a block of stone, rock or a pebble.

Adjective

Constructed of stone.

“stone walls”

Adjective

Having the appearance of stone.

“stone pot”

Alternative forms: styen, stean

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

From Middle English stonen, stanen, from Old English *stānian (“to stone”), from Proto-West Germanic *stainōn, from Proto-Germanic *stainōną (“to stone”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it STOHN.

Rhymes with KNOWN PHONE ALONE SHOWN GROWN

Related meanings

Synonyms rock pit gem

In a sentence

Put a stone on it.
© tatoeba.org contributor maaster (CC BY 2.0 FR)
The house is made of stone.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use STONE in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 96.0% of possible answers.

Open Solver with STONE Open Word Finder

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: September 21, 2023 (#824).

See the full page for that puzzle: September 21, 2023 (#824).

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

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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.

STONE in Connections

11 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . Showing the 5 most recent. A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.

How STONE performs as a guess

STONE 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 89.1% of games, misses completely in 10.9%, and leaves about 96 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #677 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.59 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___E S in the 1st position and E in the 5th position S__N_ S in the 1st position and N in the 4th position _T__E T in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position ST_NE S in the 1st position, T in the 2nd position, N in the 4th position, and E in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe STONE 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.

5.44 Entropy (bits)
96 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
96.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How STONE 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.

3.59 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#677 Rank among openers
Opening with STONE left 3 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 3.59 average. It ranks #677 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
80
3 guesses
979
4 guesses
1,124
5 guesses
156
6 guesses
11

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ENOST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
89%
Green tile
41%
All gray
11%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L A N K
S T O N E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches STONE in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

STONE can come back 118 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

261 answers
219 answers
143 answers
129 answers
122 answers
107 answers
79 answers
72 answers
71 answers
69 answers
62 answers
54 answers
49 answers
46 answers
42 answers
38 answers
35 answers
33 answers
29 answers
27 answers
27 answers
26 answers
26 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1T1O1N1E1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 6 points

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

Try next

LAIRY CEDAR GLARE MOLAR TRAIT HEART

Strategy after playing STONE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing STONE:

11% chance
Suggested:
LAIRY
9% chance
Suggested:
CEDAR
6% chance
Suggested:
GLARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

10.9% →
LAIRY 5.65 bits
9.2% →
CEDAR 5.30 bits
6.0% →
GLARE 4.58 bits
5.4% →
MOLAR 5.16 bits
5.1% →
TRAIT 5.16 bits
4.5% →
HEART 4.71 bits
3.3% →
CLARY 4.87 bits
3.0% →
ARIEL 4.63 bits
3.0% →
MANIC 4.66 bits
2.9% →
MARSH 4.61 bits

Research on STONE

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

Optimal play

Opening with STONE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.61 guesses and ranks #418 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 STONE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, at or below the proven-optimal 3.61, 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
STONE sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 63 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A1); among the first words English learners study.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 6, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 76 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.1 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).