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

WHOLE

Yes, WHOLE was the Wordle answer on July 27, 2025 (Wordle #1499).

As an opener, it rules out about 93.2% of possible answers.

Open Solver with WHOLE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /həʊl/[hɜʊ̯ɫ][hɒʊ̯ɫ]

Adjective

Entire, undivided.

“I ate a whole fish.”

Adjective

Sound, uninjured, healthy.

“He is of whole mind, but the same cannot be said about his physical state.”

Adverb

In entirety; entirely; wholly.

“I ate a fish whole!”

Noun

Something complete, without any parts missing.

“This variety of fascinating details didn't fall together into an enjoyable, coherent whole.”

Alternative forms: hole

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: July 27, 2025 (#1499).

See the full page for that puzzle: July 27, 2025 (#1499).

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.

How WHOLE performs as a guess

WHOLE 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 83.7% of games, misses completely in 16.3%, and leaves about 160 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,960 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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___E W in the 1st position and E in the 5th position W__L_ W in the 1st position and L in the 4th position _H__E H in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe WHOLE 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.

4.76 Entropy (bits)
160 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
93.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 69% of evaluated openers
1.19 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How WHOLE 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#5,960 Rank among openers
Opening with WHOLE solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.68 average. It ranks #5,960 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
73
3 guesses
841
4 guesses
1,204
5 guesses
222
6 guesses
13
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.46 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ELO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
36%
All gray
16%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I N K
W H O L E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches WHOLE in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

WHOLE can come back 101 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

387 answers
288 answers
198 answers
180 answers
148 answers
121 answers
83 answers
80 answers
65 answers
60 answers
50 answers
48 answers
44 answers
43 answers
38 answers
36 answers
33 answers
28 answers
28 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

W4H4O1L1E1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Try next

SAINT STAIR SLAIN RENAL STARY MIRTH

Strategy after playing WHOLE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing WHOLE:

16% chance
Suggested:
SAINT
12% chance
Suggested:
STAIR
8% chance
Suggested:
STAIR

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.3% →
SAINT 6.18 bits
12.1% →
STAIR 5.22 bits
8.3% →
STAIR 5.06 bits
7.6% →
SAINT 5.21 bits
6.2% →
SLAIN 5.00 bits
5.1% →
RENAL 4.61 bits
3.5% →
STARY 4.36 bits
3.4% →
MIRTH 4.64 bits
2.7% →
SALTY 4.32 bits
2.5% →
VOTER 4.33 bits

Research on WHOLE

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

Optimal play

Opening with WHOLE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,448 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 #2,770 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it HOHL.

Rhymes with STOLE TROLL KNOLL ECOLE DROLL

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, WHOLE is a kind of concept or object.

Synonyms all RIGHT completely unit totally SOLID

Opposites fractional half injured unhealthy

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
WHOLE sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 288 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.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 5, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 52 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.3 of 5).

In a sentence

That was the whole point.
© tatoeba.org contributor CM (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I love the whole world.
© tatoeba.org contributor frpzzd (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).