Accepted guess Not a possible answer C tier for first-turn info

SWALY

SWALY is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.

As an opener, it rules out about 91.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Adjective

Boggy; marshy.

Adjective

Shady.

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

Yes

Included in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.

Possible answer

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

Past Wordle answer

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

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

How SWALY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SWALY as a guess, but the solver does not list it as a possible answer.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 77.5% of games, misses completely in 22.5%, and leaves about 197 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,484 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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.

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

First-turn measures

All four describe SWALY 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.

4.64 Entropy (bits)
197 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 61% of evaluated openers
1.31 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SWALY 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#5,484 Rank among openers
Opening with SWALY solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.68 average. It ranks #5,484 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
52
3 guesses
902
4 guesses
1,165
5 guesses
223
6 guesses
12
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.46 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ALS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
42%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

SWALY can come back 94 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

533 answers
249 answers
166 answers
145 answers
127 answers
121 answers
104 answers
101 answers
53 answers
49 answers
48 answers
48 answers
37 answers
32 answers
29 answers
29 answers
27 answers
26 answers
26 answers
22 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1W4A1L1Y4
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing SWALY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SWALY:

22% chance
Suggested:
TRINE
10% chance
Suggested:
TONER
7% chance
Suggested:
RIONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.5%
TRINE 6.26 bits
10.5%
TONER 5.46 bits
7.0%
RIONE 4.98 bits
6.1%
TRINE 5.29 bits
5.3%
RIONE 4.63 bits
5.1%
TONER 4.67 bits
4.4%
RUOTE 5.46 bits
4.3%
DRICE 4.97 bits
2.2%
TRINE 3.75 bits
2.1%
DRONE 4.71 bits

Research on SWALY

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

Optimal play

Opening with SWALY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #6,559 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.86 guesses at best and is rank #3,230 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.73, 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.

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it SWAHLEE. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.