ADULT
Yes, ADULT was the Wordle answer on October 17, 2023 (Wordle #850).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈæd.ʌlt//ˈæd.əlt//əˈdʌlt/
- Noun
-
An animal that is full-grown.
- Noun
-
A person who has reached the legal age of majority.
- Adjective
-
Fully grown.
“an adult human, animal, or plant”
- Adjective
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Intended for or restricted to adults rather than children due to size, maturity, knowledge level, judgement, etc.
“adult clothes; adult cereal; an adult documentary”
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From French adulte, from Latin adultus (“grown up”), perfect passive participle of adolescō (“to grow up”). Compare adolescent.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
Two syllables, stress on the second syllable Say it UHDUHLT.
Rhymes with EXULT
Related meanings
Synonyms big GROWN pornographic sexy mature
Opposites juvenile immature
In a sentence
You are now an adult.
Now you are an adult.
Use ADULT in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 93.5% of possible answers.
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: October 17, 2023 (#850).
See the full page for that puzzle: October 17, 2023 (#850).
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 →ADULT in Connections
2 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #516
Reveal this appearance's category
ADULT appeared in RISQUÉ (blue group).
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· Puzzle #208
Reveal this appearance's category
ADULT appeared in WHAT "X" MIGHT MEAN (purple group).
How ADULT performs as a guess
ADULT is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 82.7% of games, misses completely in 17.3%, and leaves about 154 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #962 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.60 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 ADULT 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 ADULT 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 ADULT in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
ADULT can come back 104 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 ADULT; 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 ADULT
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to ADULT.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing ADULT:
Research on ADULT
Game-tree analysis and word research for ADULT, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with ADULT, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,262 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 ADULT can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, at or below the proven-optimal 3.66, 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
- ADULT sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 63 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 A2); among the first words English learners study.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 5, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 74 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.5 of 5).
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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).