5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess S tier for first-turn info

TRACE

Yes, TRACE has been the Wordle answer on December 15, 2021 (Wordle #179) and August 21, 2026 (Wordle #1889).

As an opener, it rules out about 96.8% of possible answers.

Open Solver with TRACE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /tɹeɪs/[tʃɹeɪs]

Noun

An act of tracing.

“Your cell phone company can put a trace on your line.”

Noun

An enquiry sent out for a missing article, such as a letter or an express package.

Adjective

Extremely small or insignificant (of an amount or quantity).

Verb

To follow the trail of.

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used 2 times

Past Wordle answer: December 15, 2021 (#179); August 21, 2026 (#1889).

See the full page for each puzzle: December 15, 2021 (#179); August 21, 2026 (#1889).

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

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How verification and withdrawal work

The answer word and timezone are used transiently to verify this page, then discarded. The receipt prevents duplicate submissions and lets this browser withdraw later; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. Read the full privacy details.

How TRACE performs as a guess

TRACE 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 89.3% of games, misses completely in 10.7%, and leaves about 77 possible answers on average.

In the current bounded six-turn policy, it ranks #6 of 182 evaluated openers; exact misses rank first, then average guesses among wins.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.53 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

T___E T in the 1st position and E in the 5th position T__C_ T in the 1st position and C in the 4th position _R__E R in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in TRACE.

First-turn measures

All four describe TRACE 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.

5.82 Entropy (bits)
77 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
96.8% Avg ruled out
In the top 1% for first-turn entropy
0.13 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TRACE 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.

3.53 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#9 Rank among openers
Opening with TRACE left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.53 average. It ranks #9 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
103
3 guesses
1,077
4 guesses
1,007
5 guesses
150
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:
AERT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
89%
Green tile
42%
All gray
11%

Example solver route

R O A T E
T R A C E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches TRACE in 2 guesses.

Feedback distribution

TRACE can come back 150 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

255 answers
133 answers
126 answers
118 answers
115 answers
108 answers
66 answers
62 answers
59 answers
54 answers
51 answers
50 answers
50 answers
50 answers
45 answers
42 answers
40 answers
39 answers
35 answers
34 answers
32 answers
29 answers
25 answers
23 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1R1A1C3E1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Try next

SOILY SONLY OLDEN HOIST SORRY RADAR

Strategy after playing TRACE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TRACE:

11% chance
Suggested:
SOILY
6% chance
Suggested:
SONLY
5% chance
Suggested:
OLDEN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

10.7% →
SOILY 5.66 bits
5.6% →
SONLY 5.23 bits
5.3% →
OLDEN 4.98 bits
5.0% →
SOILY 3.93 bits
4.8% →
HOIST 5.12 bits
4.5% →
SOILY 4.73 bits
2.8% →
SORRY 4.68 bits
2.6% →
RADAR 4.08 bits
2.5% →
SLEET 4.60 bits
2.3% →
SAULT 4.30 bits

Research on TRACE

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

Optimal play

Opening with TRACE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.57 guesses and ranks #10 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 TRACE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.53, at or below the proven-optimal 3.57, 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 TRAYS.

Rhymes with PLACE SPACE GRACE CHASE BRACE

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, TRACE is a kind of amount or indication.

Synonyms line follow TOUCH draw describe hunt

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
TRACE sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 15 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B1); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 8, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 53 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.5 of 5).

In a sentence

There was no trace of him.
© tatoeba.org contributor Spamster (CC BY 2.0 FR)
He left without a trace.
© tatoeba.org contributor megamanenm (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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).