Possible answer Not used yet B tier for first-turn info

SWEAR

SWEAR is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈswɛə(ɹ)//ˈswɛɚ//ˈsweː/

Verb

To take an oath, to promise intensely, solemnly, and/or with legally binding effect.

“The knight swore not to return to the palace until he had found the treasure.”

Verb

To take an oath that an assertion is true.

“The witness swore that the person she had seen running out of the bank was a foot shorter than the accused.”

Noun

A swear word.

Adjective

Heavy.

Alternative forms: sweer, sweir, swere

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

Etymology

From Middle English swere, swer, swar, from Old English swǣr, swār (“heavy, heavy as a burden, of great weight, oppressive, grievous, painful, unpleasant, sad, feeling or expressing grief, grave, slow, dull, sluggish, slothful, indolent, inactive from weakness, enfeebled, weak”), from Proto-West Germanic *swār, from Proto-Germanic *swēraz (“heavy”), from Proto-Indo-European *swer- (“heavy”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it SWEHR.

Rhymes with THEIR THERE WHERE SHARE AWARE

Related meanings

Synonyms look bank COUNT bet rely depend

In a sentence

I can swear to that.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Would you swear to that?
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use SWEAR in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 95.0% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

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

How SWEAR performs as a guess

SWEAR 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 87.0% of games, misses completely in 13.0%, and leaves about 118 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,872 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.

All gray? Tap a tile to cycle gray → yellow → green.

First-turn measures

All four describe SWEAR 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.

5.16 Entropy (bits)
118 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
95.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SWEAR 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.

3.67 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#4,872 Rank among openers
Opening with SWEAR solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.67 average. It ranks #4,872 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
78
3 guesses
869
4 guesses
1,174
5 guesses
218
6 guesses
14

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AERS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
87%
Green tile
34%
All gray
13%

Example solver route

R O A T E
G L E A M
C R O W D
S W E A R

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SWEAR in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

SWEAR can come back 113 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

311 answers
220 answers
197 answers
132 answers
126 answers
109 answers
99 answers
96 answers
85 answers
54 answers
54 answers
52 answers
43 answers
41 answers
38 answers
37 answers
36 answers
29 answers
29 answers
28 answers
26 answers
25 answers
25 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1W4E1A1R1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing SWEAR

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SWEAR:

13% chance
Suggested:
COUNT
9% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
8% chance
Suggested:
TALON

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.0% →
COUNT 5.67 bits
9.2% →
TOILE 5.40 bits
8.3% →
TALON 4.97 bits
5.5% →
COURT 5.07 bits
5.3% →
TABLE 4.72 bits
4.6% →
PORTE 4.31 bits
4.2% →
STINK 4.44 bits
4.0% →
CAIRN 4.26 bits
3.6% →
TOILE 3.41 bits
2.3% →
HOIST 4.54 bits

Research on SWEAR

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

Optimal play

Opening with SWEAR, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #4,330 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 SWEAR 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
SWEAR sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 32 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sound (4.8 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; Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).