Wordle #1,866 Answer
July 29, 2026 · Wednesday
The answer to Wordle #1,866 was
VALVE: A device that controls the flow of a gas or fluid through a space, such as a pipe, manifold, or plenum.
Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected and lightly formatted from Wiktionary; long entries may be shortened.
Why it may be difficult: a repeated letter, uncommon letters.
The word rating describes familiarity and letter features. The solver score below measures how a fixed strategy handles the puzzle; an unusual word can still be easy for that strategy.
How difficult was it for the solver?
Solver pressure: 75/100 (tricky). This is a percentile among past puzzles under the same strategy: 0 is easiest and 100 is hardest for the solver.
This compares past puzzles under the same solver settings; it does not measure how players performed. Compare more puzzles →
Wordle #1,866, measured
This section compares VALVE's solver-difficulty percentile, first-guess results for ten familiar openers, and opt-in player reports. Each number identifies its dataset.
Solver difficulty, as a percentile
This score is a percentile, not an opinion. Under the site's fixed solver settings, VALVE measured harder for the solver than about 75% of all 1,918 recorded answers to date. Its rating is tricky. It repeats V; the example solver route takes four turns.
Solver pressure ranks the answer within the pool; it does not measure player performance. The opener table compares first-guess results, and the contributed ratings report player results.
CRANE, SLATE and ADIEU benchmark
SALET left the fewest candidates: its first-guess feedback left 3 of the 2,374 words in the site's working answer pool. At the other end, AUDIO left 442 candidates, about 147 times as many. The vowel-heavy probes ADIEU and AUDIO revealed comparatively little here. Vowel coverage helps only when the answer's vowels are still in doubt.
| Opener | First-guess feedback | Answers still possible |
|---|---|---|
| SALET | SALET | 3 |
| SLATE | SLATE | 16 |
| TARSE | TARSE | 24 |
| RAISE | RAISE | 28 |
| STARE | STARE | 41 |
| TRACE | TRACE | 45 |
| ARISE | ARISE | 49 |
| CRANE | CRANE | 51 |
| ADIEU | ADIEU | 190 |
| AUDIO | AUDIO | 442 |
“Answers still possible” counts the words in the site's 2,374-word working answer pool whose feedback would match that opener exactly. This is pattern arithmetic, not a simulation. A smaller number means the opener left fewer possible answers after the first guess. It does not describe later turns.
Contributed player ratings
Not enough contributed games to publish player figures for this puzzle. Per-puzzle numbers appear only after at least 10 opt-in games arrive. See how the Observatory collects and publishes player data →
See the solver's route to VALVE → It shows which guesses reduced the candidate pool on each turn.
Solver replay
One route our solver takes from its usual opening word to VALVE.
The solver reaches the answer in 4 guesses.
Common questions
- What was the Wordle answer for July 29, 2026?
- The Wordle answer for July 29, 2026 (puzzle #1866) was VALVE.
- What does VALVE mean?
- VALVE: A device that controls the flow of a gas or fluid through a space, such as a pipe, manifold, or plenum.
- Why was Wordle #1866 tricky?
- VALVE is rated hard for estimated word difficulty. Why it may be difficult: a repeated letter, uncommon letters.