VENAL
VENAL is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈviːnəl/
- Adjective
-
Of a position, privilege etc.: available for purchase rather than assigned on merit.
- Adjective
-
Capable of being bought (of a person); willing to take bribes.
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
Borrowed from French vénal, from Old French venel, from Latin vēnālis (“for sale”), from vēnum (“something for sale”); compare English vend.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it VEENUHL.
Related meanings
Synonyms dishonest corrupt
In a sentence
Can someone explain to me why a venal judge was appointed?
Use VENAL in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 93.8% of possible answers.
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
No completed appearanceNo appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.
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 VENAL performs as a guess
Wordle accepts VENAL 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 84.9% of games, misses completely in 15.1%, and leaves about 147 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,128 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.67 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 VENAL 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 VENAL 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
VENAL can come back 108 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 VENAL; 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 VENAL
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to VENAL.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing VENAL:
Research on VENAL
Game-tree analysis and word research for VENAL, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with VENAL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,486 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 VENAL can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- VENAL 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.
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).