5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess S tier opener

TRACE

Yes, TRACE was the Wordle answer on December 15, 2021 (Wordle #179).

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 once

Past Wordle answer: December 15, 2021 (#179).

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

Wordle Observatory

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About the project

Add an anonymous result and difficulty rating to the public, aggregate research dataset.

We send only this answer word for puzzle verification, the puzzle number, result, difficulty vote, Hard Mode flag, timezone and a random one-puzzle receipt token. The Observatory stores no answer word, grid, guesses, account, email, IP-derived ID or reusable player identifier. The puzzle-specific receipt prevents duplicate submissions and permits withdrawal; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. See the privacy details.

How TRACE performs as a guess

TRACE is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,358 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 76 possible answers on average.

In the current bounded six-turn policy, it ranks #4 of 182 evaluated openers; exact misses rank first, then average guesses among wins.

In the previous complete v5 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.

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

Try next

SOILY SONLY OLDEN HOIST SORRY RADAR
Words starting with T Words ending with E

First-turn measures

5.82 Entropy (bits)
76 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 opener: v5 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
99.9% Win rate
0.71 Volatility
#9 v5 opener rank
In the complete v5 snapshot, TRACE 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 (3.45 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

150 possible patterns. Top outcomes:

253
132
125
117
114
106
65
62
58
54
51
50
49
49
45
42
40
39
35
32
32
29
25
23
21
21
20
19
19
19

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 5.65 bits
5.6% →
SONLY 5.23 bits
5.3% →
OLDEN 4.98 bits
5.0% →
SOILY 3.94 bits
4.8% →
HOIST 5.13 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

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.