WHILE
Yes, WHILE was the Wordle answer on October 3, 2023 (Wordle #836).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ʍaɪl//waɪl//wæl/
- Noun
-
An uncertain duration of time, a period of time.
“He lectured for quite a long while.”
- Conjunction
-
During the same time that.
“He was sleeping while I was singing.”
- Conjunction
-
Although.
“This case, while interesting, is a bit frustrating.”
- Preposition
-
Until.
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English whyle, from Old English hwīl, from Proto-West Germanic *hwīlu, from Proto-Germanic *hwīlō (compare Dutch wijl, Low German Wiel, German Weile, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål hvile (“rest”), Norwegian Nynorsk kvila (“rest”), Swedish vila (“rest”), Faroese and Icelandic hvíla (“rest”)) from Proto-Indo-European *kʷyeh₁- (“to rest”). Cognate with Albanian sillë (“breakfast”), Latin tranquillus, Sanskrit चिर (cirá), Persian شاد (šâd).
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it WYL.
Rhymes with STYLE SMILE AISLE GUILE STILE
Related meanings
In a sentence
It has been a while.
Do it while you can.
Use WHILE in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 93.2% 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
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: October 3, 2023 (#836).
See the full page for that puzzle: October 3, 2023 (#836).
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 →WHILE in Connections
2 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #1167
Reveal this appearance's category
WHILE appeared in ONCE IN A ___ (purple group).
-
· Puzzle #194
Reveal this appearance's category
WHILE appeared in INTERVAL OF TIME (blue group).
How WHILE performs as a guess
WHILE 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 82.6% of games, misses completely in 17.4%, and leaves about 162 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,244 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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 WHILE 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 WHILE 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 WHILE in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
WHILE can come back 102 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 WHILE; 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 WHILE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to WHILE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing WHILE:
Research on WHILE
Game-tree analysis and word research for WHILE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with WHILE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,520 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.85 guesses at best and is rank #2,864 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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
- WHILE sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 724 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 A2); among the first words English learners study.
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.