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

VOWEL

Yes, VOWEL was the Wordle answer on November 21, 2025 (Wordle #1616).

As an opener, it rules out about 90.6% of possible answers.

Open Solver with VOWEL Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈvaʊ.əl//vaʊl/

Noun

A sound produced by the vocal cords with relatively little restriction of the oral cavity, forming the prominent sound of a syllable.

“Hawaiian has either five or twenty-five vowels, depending on how they are counted.”

Noun

A letter or diacritic representing the sound of a vowel; in English, the vowels are a, e, i, o, u, y (sometimes), and w (rarely).

“The word facetiously is spelled with all six vowels in alphabetical order.”

Verb

To add vowel points to a consonantal script (e.g. niqqud in Hebrew or harakat in Arabic).

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: November 21, 2025 (#1616).

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

Wordle Observatory

How did this puzzle feel?

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 VOWEL performs as a guess

VOWEL 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 79.1% of games, misses completely in 20.9%, and leaves about 222 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete v5 benchmark, it ranks #10,115 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.76 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.

V___L V in the 1st position and L in the 5th position V__E_ V in the 1st position and E in the 4th position _O__L O in the 2nd position and L in the 5th position

Try next

SAINT TIARE SAUCY ARSON STAIR BLATE
Words starting with V Words ending with L

First-turn measures

4.34 Entropy (bits)
222 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
90.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 41% of evaluated openers
1.61 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opener: v5 benchmark

How VOWEL 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.

3.76 Avg guesses
100.0% Win rate
0.71 Volatility
#10,115 v5 opener rank
In the complete v5 snapshot, VOWEL ranks #10,115 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
52
3 guesses
768
4 guesses
1,226
5 guesses
292
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:
ELO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
29%
All gray
21%

Example solver route

R O A T E
V I N Y L
V O W E L

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches VOWEL in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

90 possible patterns. Top outcomes:

492
378
182
177
147
130
130
68
46
42
42
37
34
25
25
24
23
23
22
21
17
15
13
13
12
11
11
11
10
8

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing VOWEL:

21% chance
Suggested:
SAINT
16% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
8% chance
Suggested:
SAUCY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.9% →
SAINT 6.12 bits
16.0% →
TIARE 5.47 bits
7.7% →
SAUCY 5.02 bits
7.5% →
ARSON 5.18 bits
6.2% →
STAIR 4.70 bits
5.5% →
BLATE 4.58 bits
5.5% →
SHART 4.49 bits
2.9% →
SNORE 4.42 bits
2.0% →
SHART 4.88 bits
1.8% →
SAINT 4.43 bits

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

V4O1W4E1L1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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