WITCH
Yes, WITCH was the Wordle answer on November 26, 2024 (Wordle #1256).
As an opener, it rules out about 87.4% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /wɪt͡ʃ/
- Noun
-
A person (now usually particularly a woman) who uses magical or similar supernatural powers to influence or predict events, particularly one with malicious motives.
- Noun
-
A person who follows Wicca or similar New Age pagan beliefs.
- Verb
-
To dowse for water.
- Verb
-
To bewitch.
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: November 26, 2024 (#1256).
See the full page for that puzzle: November 26, 2024 (#1256).
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 WITCH performs as a guess
WITCH 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 69.4% of games, misses completely in 30.6%, and leaves about 300 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,611 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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 WITCH 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 WITCH 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 WITCH in 5 guesses. See the trap-family guide for similar endgames.
Feedback distribution
WITCH can come back 86 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 WITCH; 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 WITCH
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to WITCH.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing WITCH:
Research on WITCH
Game-tree analysis and word research for WITCH, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with WITCH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,092 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with WITCH can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, WITCH is a kind of woman or vision.
Synonyms glamour hex jinx
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- WITCH sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 13 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 5, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 84 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.3 of 5).
In a sentence
I am not a witch.
I'm, in fact, a witch.
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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).