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

WAIST

Yes, WAIST was the Wordle answer on December 6, 2025 (Wordle #1631).

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /weɪst/

Noun

The part of the body between the pelvis and the stomach.

Noun

A part of a piece of clothing that covers the waist.

Alternative forms: waste, wast

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English wast (“waist”), probably from Old English *wæst, *wǣst, *weaxt, *wæhst, from Proto-West Germanic *wahstu, from Proto-Germanic *wahstuz (“growth, development, stature, build”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂weks- (“to multiply, increase”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it WAYST.

Rhymes with BASED WASTE TASTE FACED PASTE

Related meanings

Synonyms SHANK

In a sentence

The waist is a little small.
© tatoeba.org contributor orcrist (CC BY 2.0 FR)
She has a small waist.
© tatoeba.org contributor _undertoad (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use WAIST in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 93.9% of possible answers.

Open Solver with WAIST Open Word Finder

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 6, 2025 (#1631).

See the full page for that puzzle: December 6, 2025 (#1631).

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.

WAIST in Connections

2 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.

How WAIST performs as a guess

WAIST is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 82.3% of games, misses completely in 17.7%, and leaves about 146 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,320 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.63 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.

W___T W in the 1st position and T in the 5th position W__S_ W in the 1st position and S in the 4th position _A__T A in the 2nd position and T in the 5th position WA_ST W in the 1st position, A in the 2nd position, S in the 4th position, and T in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe WAIST 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.

5.01 Entropy (bits)
146 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
93.9% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How WAIST 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.

3.63 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#2,320 Rank among openers
Opening with WAIST solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.63 average. It ranks #2,320 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
60
3 guesses
976
4 guesses
1,115
5 guesses
187
6 guesses
15

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AIST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
39%
All gray
18%

Example solver route

R O A T E
C L I N T
W A I S T

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches WAIST in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

WAIST can come back 106 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

422 answers
244 answers
153 answers
142 answers
110 answers
105 answers
99 answers
65 answers
54 answers
49 answers
47 answers
47 answers
45 answers
44 answers
44 answers
44 answers
37 answers
36 answers
32 answers
32 answers
30 answers
25 answers
25 answers
25 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

W4A1I1S1T1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Try next

LOURE LEARN LINER MORNE PLORE TUTOR

Strategy after playing WAIST

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing WAIST:

18% chance
Suggested:
LOURE
10% chance
Suggested:
LEARN
6% chance
Suggested:
LINER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.7% →
LOURE 5.84 bits
10.2% →
LEARN 5.38 bits
6.4% →
LINER 5.32 bits
6.0% →
MORNE 4.78 bits
4.6% →
PLORE 5.07 bits
4.4% →
TUTOR 5.23 bits
4.2% →
CRONE 4.86 bits
2.7% →
CRAKE 4.22 bits
2.3% →
COURE 4.70 bits
2.1% →
TITHE 4.06 bits

Research on WAIST

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

Optimal play

Opening with WAIST, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,546 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.79 guesses at best and is rank #1,201 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.63, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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
WAIST sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 9 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 7, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 80 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.3 of 5).

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).