Five-letter words matching S_AL_

Green letters (right spot)
Yellow letters (wrong spots)

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Showing 26 matching words
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The top-ranked splitter is shown in the shortlist note below. Add a gray or yellow clue here to recalculate after the position changes.

Shortlist note

How to play this shortlist

This pattern has 26 words in the Wordle guess list; 11 are possible answers. The calculator compared 14,786 Wordle guesses against those 11 answers. The possible-answer label is a guide, not a promise about what Wordle's editors will choose.

Previously used by Wordle: SCALD (September 29, 2022); SCALE (August 3, 2024); SHALL (March 29, 2022); SMALL (December 20, 2023); STALE (November 6, 2022); STALL (May 16, 2024).

Top-ranked splitter ETHYL
Average remaining
1.18
Worst branch
2
Information
3.28 bits

It is a deliberate probe rather than a possible answer here: the point is to separate the remaining answers cleanly.

Hard Mode Use STALE instead.

ETHYL does not fit this page's clues. STALE keeps every clue shown here and leaves an average remainder of 3.18 (5 in its worst branch). Check any additional yellow-position clues in the full Solver.

Trap warning: SCAL_

SCALD, SCALE, SCALP, SCALY differ only in the fifth position. Trying them one at a time can use several turns; ETHYL tests the family more efficiently.

Compare two plays

Choose any two plays. The figures use the same 11 possible answers.

Pattern guide

What fits S_AL_?

All 26 matching words are shown above. 11 are possible answers.

More about these matches

Words with five different letters

65% of the matches have no repeated letters.

Common letter pairs

AL 25% SC 6% CA 6% LE 5% SH 5%

Vowels

No vowels: 0% · one: 69% · two: 31% · three or more: 0%

Common questions
How many five-letter words match S_AL_?
26 five-letter words match S_AL_ in this site's Wordle guess list. Of these, 11 are possible answers.
Which matching word has the highest feedback entropy?
Among all matching words, STALE has the highest feedback entropy at 5.74 bits against the possible answers.
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