AFTER
Yes, AFTER was the Wordle answer on February 7, 2024 (Wordle #963).
As an opener, it rules out about 95.2% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈɑːftə//ˈaftə(ɹ)//ˈæftəɹ/
- Adverb
-
Behind; later in time; following.
“I left the room, and the dog bounded after.”
- Preposition
-
Subsequently to; following in time; later than.
“We had a few beers after the game.”
- Preposition
-
Behind.
“He will leave a trail of destruction after him.”
- Conjunction
-
Signifies that the action of the clause it starts takes place before the action of the other clause.
“The show ends after the fat lady sings.”
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: February 7, 2024 (#963).
See the full page for that puzzle: February 7, 2024 (#963).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
Wordle Observatory · optional
Played this Wordle?
Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds
Wordle Observatory · optional
Played this Wordle?
Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds
Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.
See the public dataThank you. Your result now helps describe this puzzle.
See what the public sample says →How AFTER performs as a guess
AFTER 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 87.2% of games, misses completely in 12.8%, and leaves about 114 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,621 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.65 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 AFTER 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 AFTER 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 AFTER in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
AFTER can come back 102 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 AFTER; 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 AFTER
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to AFTER.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing AFTER:
Research on AFTER
Game-tree analysis and word research for AFTER, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with AFTER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,381 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 AFTER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.65, 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.
How it sounds
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it AFTUR.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- AFTER sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 1,288 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.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 4, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 29 of 100. Raters found it difficult to picture.
In a sentence
After that, I get up.
What will you do after?
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).