WHERE
Yes, WHERE was the Wordle answer on March 9, 2023 (Wordle #628).
As an opener, it rules out about 89.1% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈwɛə/[ˈwɛə]/ˈʍɛə/
- Adverb
-
In, at or to what place.
“Where are you?”
- Adverb
-
In what situation.
“Where would we be without our parents?”
- Conjunction
-
While on the contrary; although; whereas.
“Where Susy has trouble coloring inside the lines, Johnny has already mastered shading.”
- Conjunction
-
That.
“I read where they caught the guy.”
Alternative forms: quhair, quhar, quher, quhere
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: March 9, 2023 (#628).
See the full page for that puzzle: March 9, 2023 (#628).
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 WHERE performs as a guess
WHERE is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 72.8% of games, misses completely in 27.2%, and leaves about 259 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,490 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.77 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 WHERE 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 WHERE 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
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches WHERE in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
WHERE can come back 87 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 WHERE; 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 WHERE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to WHERE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing WHERE:
Research on WHERE
Game-tree analysis and word research for WHERE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with WHERE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.79 guesses and ranks #10,404 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.96 guesses at best and is rank #5,438 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.77, at or below the proven-optimal 3.79, 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
- WHERE sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 1,000 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Learner level
- Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A1); among the first words English learners study.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.9 of 5).
In a sentence
Where have you been to?
Where were all of you?
Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).