THUNK
THUNK is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
As an opener, it rules out about 87.1% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /θʌŋk/
- Verb
-
past participle of think
“Who would have thunk those guys would have a problem with a little lie?”
- Interjection
-
Representing the dull sound of the impact of a heavy object striking another and coming to an immediate standstill, with neither object being broken by the impact.
- Verb
-
To strike against something, without breakage, making a "thunk" sound.
“I was thunked on the head by his stick.”
- Noun
-
A delayed computation.
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
NoThe solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.
Past Wordle answer
Not used yetNo past answer date found.
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
Wordle Observatory · optional
Played this Wordle?
Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds
Wordle Observatory · optional
Played this Wordle?
Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds
Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.
See the public dataThank you. Your result now helps describe this puzzle.
See what the public sample says →How THUNK performs as a guess
Wordle accepts THUNK 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 68.9% of games, misses completely in 31.1%, and leaves about 305 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,077 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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 THUNK 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 THUNK 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
THUNK can come back 88 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 THUNK; 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 THUNK
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to THUNK.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing THUNK:
Research on THUNK
Game-tree analysis and word research for THUNK, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with THUNK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,299 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.86 guesses at best and is rank #3,279 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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 THUHNK.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, THUNK is a kind of sound.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- THUNK sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sound (2.6 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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).