WOULD
Yes, WOULD was the Wordle answer on December 14, 2023 (Wordle #908).
As an opener, it rules out about 88.8% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /wəd//əd//(w)ʊ(l)d/
- Verb
-
Past tense of will; usually followed by a bare infinitive.
“On my first day at University, I met the woman who would become my wife.”
- Verb
-
A modal verb, the subjunctive of will; usually followed by a bare infinitive.
“If I won the lottery, I would give half the money to charity.”
- Noun
-
Something that would happen, or would be the case, under different circumstances; a potentiality.
- Interjection
-
Ellipsis of I would, used to denote that the speaker finds another person sexually attractive.
Alternative forms: wou'd
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: December 14, 2023 (#908).
See the full page for that puzzle: December 14, 2023 (#908).
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 WOULD performs as a guess
WOULD 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 71.9% of games, misses completely in 28.1%, and leaves about 265 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,485 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe WOULD 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 WOULD 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 WOULD in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
WOULD can come back 91 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 WOULD; 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 WOULD
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to WOULD.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing WOULD:
Research on WOULD
Game-tree analysis and word research for WOULD, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with WOULD, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,108 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 WOULD can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, 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
- WOULD sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 1,862 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.
In a sentence
And who would you be?
I would not do that.
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.