ONION

Meaning

A monocotyledonous plant (Allium cepa), allied to garlic, used as vegetable and spice.

• nounThe bulb of such a plant.
• nounAny of various plants, mostly of the genus Allium, that are more or less similar to Allium cepa.

ONION as a word-puzzle answer

ONION is a 5-letter word with 3 vowels (O, I, O) and 2 consonants (N, N). It repeats 2 letters, which is a classic trap — guessers who assume five distinct letters get stuck.

It leans on high-frequency letters (O, N, I), so a strong vowel-and-common-consonant opener tends to light up quickly. There are no rare letters here, so it is a fair, mid-difficulty answer for the daily Classic puzzle.

ONION by the numbers

Across the 1,734 curated answers in the Wordocious bank, O appears in 30% of answers (the 5th most common letter), I appears in 29% of answers (the 6th most common letter), N appears in 24% of answers (the 9th most common letter). 1 other answer share the opening “ON-”, so two green tiles up front still leave real guessing to do.

Difficulty: 2/5 — approachable, because the repeated letter hides one position.

Near misses

One letter away in the answer bank: UNION. Each of these turns four tiles green against ONION — the classic endgame squeeze where spending a guess on the differing letter beats burning attempts on hope.

Put it to use

Words like ONION are exactly what the daily puzzles throw at you. Warm up in Practice, race the clock in the Daily Challenge, or study the best starting words before your next run. New to the multi-board modes? The mode guides cover all nine.