Accepted guess Not a possible answer F tier for first-turn info

CACKS

CACKS is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kæks/

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of cack

Noun

Trousers.

Noun

Underpants.

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

From earlier kicks (“breeches”). Cognate with English kecks.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use CACKS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 84.6% of possible answers.

Wordle status

A word can be a playable guess without being a possible answer.

Playable guess

Yes

Included in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.

Possible answer

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

Past Wordle answer

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

How CACKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CACKS as a guess, but the solver does not list it as a possible answer.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 67.3% of games, misses completely in 32.7%, and leaves about 367 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,388 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.82 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.

All gray? Tap a tile to cycle gray → yellow → green.

First-turn measures

All four describe CACKS 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.

3.70 Entropy (bits)
367 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
84.6% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CACKS 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.

3.82 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#12,388 Rank among openers
Opening with CACKS left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.82 average. It ranks #12,388 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
24
3 guesses
721
4 guesses
1,275
5 guesses
314
6 guesses
18

Composition

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
AS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
67%
Green tile
25%
All gray
33%

Feedback distribution

CACKS can come back 58 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

780 answers
329 answers
296 answers
182 answers
116 answers
80 answers
77 answers
55 answers
32 answers
27 answers
26 answers
26 answers
26 answers
24 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

Base letter-value totals for CACKS; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.

Scrabble

C3A1C3K5S1
Total: 13 points

Words With Friends

Total: 15 points

Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.

Strategy after playing CACKS

What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to CACKS.

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CACKS:

33% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
14% chance
Suggested:
ALERT
12% chance
Suggested:
ROUET

Follow-ups for common patterns

Ranked follow-up guesses for the 10 most common feedback patterns.

32.7% →
TOILE 6.02 bits
13.8% →
ALERT 5.61 bits
12.4% →
ROUET 5.53 bits
7.6% →
TRINE 4.73 bits
4.9% →
STALE 4.92 bits
3.4% →
TUILE 4.81 bits
3.2% →
DROLE 5.09 bits
2.3% →
STILE 4.06 bits
1.3% →
IRATE 4.08 bits
1.1% →
RONTE 4.03 bits

Research on CACKS

Game-tree analysis and word research for CACKS, with an explanation for each figure.

Optimal play

Opening with CACKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.86 guesses and ranks #12,810 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.99 guesses at best and is rank #6,061 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.82, at or below the proven-optimal 3.86, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT).