TAKEN
Yes, TAKEN was the Wordle answer on December 1, 2023 (Wordle #895).
As an opener, it rules out about 95.1% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈteɪ.kn̩/
- Adjective
-
Infatuated; fond of or attracted to.
“He was very taken with the girl, I hear.”
- Adjective
-
In a serious romantic relationship.
“I can't ask her out, she's taken.”
- Verb
-
past participle of take
Alternative forms: ta'en, tane
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
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: December 1, 2023 (#895).
See the full page for that puzzle: December 1, 2023 (#895).
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 →How TAKEN performs as a guess
TAKEN is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 87.3% of games, misses completely in 12.7%, and leaves about 117 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,278 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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 TAKEN 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 TAKEN 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 TAKEN in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
TAKEN can come back 98 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 TAKEN; 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 TAKEN
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to TAKEN.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing TAKEN:
Research on TAKEN
Game-tree analysis and word research for TAKEN, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with TAKEN, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,443 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 TAKEN can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.69; proven optimal play reaches 3.66. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.
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 TAYKUHN.
Related meanings
Synonyms interpreted affected understood
Opposites unaffected
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- TAKEN sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 214 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.2 of 5).
In a sentence
He was taken by her.
I should have taken it.
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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).