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

SWIPE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /swaɪp/

Verb

To grab or bat quickly.

“The cat swiped at the shoelace.”

Verb

To strike with a strong blow in a sweeping motion.

Noun

A quick grab, bat, or other motion with the hand or paw; a sweep.

Noun

A strong blow given with a sweeping motion, as with a bat or club.

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 SWIPE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SWIPE 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 80.9% of games, misses completely in 19.1%, and leaves about 180 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,225 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.71 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 SWIPE 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.

4.73 Entropy (bits)
180 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 67% of evaluated openers
1.22 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SWIPE 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.

3.71 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#7,225 Rank among openers
Opening with SWIPE solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.71 average. It ranks #7,225 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
72
3 guesses
810
4 guesses
1,223
5 guesses
235
6 guesses
14
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
2 vowels
Common:
EIS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
81%
Green tile
39%
All gray
19%

Feedback distribution

SWIPE can come back 101 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

454 answers
325 answers
175 answers
169 answers
120 answers
88 answers
83 answers
62 answers
59 answers
54 answers
45 answers
42 answers
40 answers
37 answers
37 answers
36 answers
33 answers
31 answers
29 answers
29 answers
25 answers
24 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1W4I1P3E1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing SWIPE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SWIPE:

19% chance
Suggested:
TALON
14% chance
Suggested:
ALTER
7% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.1%
TALON 5.77 bits
13.7%
ALTER 5.46 bits
7.4%
TRAIN 5.08 bits
7.1%
LARGE 4.43 bits
5.1%
COALY 4.73 bits
3.7%
CLARY 4.58 bits
3.5%
TRASH 4.83 bits
2.6%
DINER 4.56 bits
2.5%
POUTY 4.54 bits
2.3%
WORLD 4.74 bits

Research on SWIPE

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

Optimal play

Opening with SWIPE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,534 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.84 guesses at best and is rank #2,493 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.71, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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

One syllable Say it SWYP.

Rhymes with SNIPE GRIPE STIPE TRIPE CRIPE

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SWIPE is a kind of shot or hit.

Synonyms lift hook abstract SNEAK PINCH cabbage

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SWIPE 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.

In a sentence

Where do I swipe my card?
© tatoeba.org contributor Cabo (CC BY 2.0 FR)
What happens if you swipe left?
© tatoeba.org contributor CM (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).