STRAW
Yes, STRAW was the Wordle answer on June 30, 2023 (Wordle #741).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /stɹɔː//stɹɔ//stɹɑ/
- Noun
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A dried stalk of a cereal plant.
- Noun
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Such dried stalks considered collectively; this bulk matter may be a chief salable product, a by-product, fodder, bedding, or green manure, depending on region and on current market conditions.
- Adjective
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Made of straw.
“straw hat”
- Adjective
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Of a pale, yellowish beige colour, like that of a dried straw.
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English straw, from Old English strēaw, from Proto-West Germanic *strau, from Proto-Germanic *strawą (“that which is strewn, straw”), from Proto-Indo-European *strew- (“to spread around, strew”).
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it STRAW.
Related meanings
In a sentence
Would you like a straw?
This is the last straw!
Use STRAW in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 93.7% 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 oncePast Wordle answer: June 30, 2023 (#741).
See the full page for that puzzle: June 30, 2023 (#741).
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 →STRAW in Connections
10 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . Showing the 5 most recent. A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #1191
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STRAW appeared in COMMON SINGLE-USE PLASTIC ITEMS (blue group).
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· Puzzle #971
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STRAW appeared in ITEMS AT A COFFEE STATION (yellow group).
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· Puzzle #944
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STRAW appeared in HOLLOW CYLINDERS (yellow group).
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· Puzzle #781
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STRAW appeared in LAST ___ (purple group).
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· Puzzle #745
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STRAW appeared in BEVERAGE SELF-SERVICE ITEMS (green group).
How STRAW performs as a guess
STRAW 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 83.3% of games, misses completely in 16.7%, and leaves about 151 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,979 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe STRAW 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 STRAW 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 STRAW in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
STRAW can come back 99 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 STRAW; 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 STRAW
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to STRAW.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing STRAW:
Research on STRAW
Game-tree analysis and word research for STRAW, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with STRAW, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,632 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 #1,323 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 3.70, 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
- STRAW sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 10 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 B1); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 5, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 90 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
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).