SWIPE
SWIPE is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /swaɪp/
- Verb
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To grab or bat quickly.
“The cat swiped at the shoelace.”
- Verb
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To strike with a strong blow in a sweeping motion.
- Noun
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A quick grab, bat, or other motion with the hand or paw; a sweep.
- Noun
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A strong blow given with a sweeping motion, as with a bat or club.
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From earlier swip (with a short vowel), from Middle English swippen, swype (“to move violently”), from Old English sweopian, swipian, swippan (“to scourge, strike, beat, lash”), from Proto-West Germanic *swippjan, *swipōn, *swipēn, from Proto-Germanic *swipōną, *swipjaną, *swipāną (“to move”), from Proto-Indo-European *sweyb- (“to bend, sway, swing, sweep, swerve, turn”).
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it SWYP.
Rhymes with SNIPE GRIPE STIPE TRIPE CRIPE
Related meanings
Synonyms lift hook abstract SNEAK PINCH cabbage
In a sentence
Where do I swipe my card?
What happens if you swipe left?
Use SWIPE in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 92.4% 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
NoThe solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.
Past Wordle answer
No completed appearanceNo 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.
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See what the public sample says →SWIPE 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 #833
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SWIPE appeared in TOUCHSCREEN GESTURES (yellow group).
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· Puzzle #672
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SWIPE appeared in STEAL (yellow group).
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· Puzzle #538
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SWIPE appeared in STEAL (green group).
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· Puzzle #217
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SWIPE appeared in THIEVE (green group).
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· Puzzle #207
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SWIPE appeared in DATING APP ACTIONS (green group).
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 81.0% of games, misses completely in 19.0%, 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
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.
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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Feedback distribution
SWIPE can come back 101 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 SWIPE; 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 SWIPE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to SWIPE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing SWIPE:
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.
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.
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).