TORCH
Yes, TORCH was the Wordle answer on September 25, 2024 (Wordle #1194).
As an opener, it rules out about 92.7% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈtɔːtʃ/[ˈtʰɔːt͡ʃ] ~ [ˈtʰo̞ːt͡ʃ]/ˈtoːtʃ/
- Noun
-
A stick of wood or plant fibres twisted together, with one end soaked in a flammable substance such as resin or tallow and set on fire, which is held in the hand, put into a wall bracket, or stuck into the ground, and used chiefly as a light source.
“The mob of angry villagers carried torches and pitchforks to the vampire’s castle.”
- Noun
-
A flower which is red or red-orange in colour like a flame.
- Verb
-
To illuminate or provide (a place) with torches (noun etymology 1, noun sense 1).
- Verb
-
To intentionally destroy (something) by setting it on fire, especially when committing arson in furtherance of some other criminal act (e.g. insurance fraud or the destruction of evidence).
“Some hoodlums had torched a derelict automobile, which emitted a ghastly pall of thick, black smoke that filled the street.”
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: September 25, 2024 (#1194).
See the full page for that puzzle: September 25, 2024 (#1194).
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 TORCH performs as a guess
TORCH 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 79.5% of games, misses completely in 20.5%, and leaves about 174 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #744 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.59 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 TORCH 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 TORCH 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 TORCH in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
TORCH can come back 120 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 TORCH; 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 TORCH
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to TORCH.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing TORCH:
Research on TORCH
Game-tree analysis and word research for TORCH, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with TORCH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,444 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 TORCH can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, at or below the proven-optimal 3.64, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, TORCH is a kind of light or herb.
Synonyms flashlight
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- TORCH sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 5 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 B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 6, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 86 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.1 of 5).
In a sentence
We all had a torch.
No one had a torch.
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; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).