SWELL
Yes, SWELL was the Wordle answer on November 9, 2024 (Wordle #1239).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /swɛl/
- Verb
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To become bigger, especially due to being engorged.
- Verb
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To cause to become bigger.
“Rains and dissolving snow swell the rivers in spring.”
- Noun
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The act of swelling; increase in size.
- Noun
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A bulge or protuberance.
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English swellen, from Old English swellan (“to swell”), from Proto-West Germanic *swellan, from Proto-Germanic *swellaną (“to swell”), of unknown origin.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it SWEHL.
Rhymes with HOTEL SMELL SHELL SPELL INTEL
Related meanings
Synonyms well GREAT old dude keen neat
Opposites bad
In a sentence
This is going to be swell.
Tom is a really swell guy.
Use SWELL in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 88.7% 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: November 9, 2024 (#1239).
See the full page for that puzzle: November 9, 2024 (#1239).
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 →SWELL in Connections
6 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 #865
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SWELL appeared in PEACHY (yellow group).
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· Puzzle #723
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SWELL appeared in COPACETIC (green group).
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· Puzzle #473
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SWELL appeared in INCREASE, IN A WAY (green group).
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· Puzzle #415
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SWELL appeared in PEACHY KEEN (yellow group).
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· Puzzle #306
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SWELL appeared in BECOME LARGER (blue group).
How SWELL performs as a guess
SWELL 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 75.7% of games, misses completely in 24.3%, and leaves about 270 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,671 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.80 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 SWELL 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 SWELL 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 SWELL in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
SWELL can come back 78 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 SWELL; 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 SWELL
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to SWELL.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing SWELL:
Research on SWELL
Game-tree analysis and word research for SWELL, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with SWELL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.84 guesses and ranks #12,401 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.98 guesses at best and is rank #5,828 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.80, at or below the proven-optimal 3.84, 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
- SWELL sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 4 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.
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.