5 FiveLetterWords
Accepted guess Not a possible answer C tier opener

WHELK

WHELK is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.

As an opener, it rules out about 87.8% of possible answers.

Open Solver with WHELK Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /wɛlk//hwɛlkʍɛlk/

Noun

Certain edible sea snails, especially, any one of numerous species of large marine gastropods belonging to Buccinidae, much used as food in Europe.

Noun

A stripe or mark; a ridge; a wale.

Alternative forms: welk, whilk, wilk

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

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

Past Wordle answer

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

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

How WHELK performs as a guess

Wordle accepts WHELK 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 75.8% of games, misses completely in 24.2%, and leaves about 288 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete v5 benchmark, it ranks #11,942 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.81 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.

W___K W in the 1st position and K in the 5th position W__L_ W in the 1st position and L in the 4th position _H__K H in the 2nd position and K in the 5th position

Try next

TRAIN RAISE SONAR LEARE COAST STARE
Words starting with W Words ending with K

First-turn measures

4.03 Entropy (bits)
288 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 24% of evaluated openers
1.91 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opener: v5 benchmark

How WHELK 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.

3.81 Avg guesses
100.0% Win rate
0.72 Volatility
#11,942 v5 opener rank
In the complete v5 snapshot, WHELK ranks #11,942 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
55
3 guesses
692
4 guesses
1,274
5 guesses
312
6 guesses
20
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
1 vowels
Common:
EL

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
24%
All gray
24%

Feedback distribution

80 possible patterns. Top outcomes:

571
496
196
159
124
81
75
52
50
44
41
37
30
27
25
24
24
24
21
20
19
17
16
14
10
8
8
8
7
7

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing WHELK:

24% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
21% chance
Suggested:
RAISE
8% chance
Suggested:
SONAR

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

24.2% →
TRAIN 6.00 bits
21.0% →
RAISE 5.31 bits
8.3% →
SONAR 5.17 bits
6.7% →
LEARE 4.68 bits
5.3% →
COAST 4.88 bits
3.4% →
STARE 4.58 bits
3.2% →
DALLY 4.12 bits
2.2% →
CARTE 4.74 bits
2.1% →
COAST 4.64 bits
1.9% →
ROAST 4.65 bits

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

W4H4E1L1K5
Total: 15 points

Words With Friends

Total: 15 points

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