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

CADGE

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kæd͡ʒ/

Verb

To beg.

Verb

To obtain something by wit or guile; to convince people to do something they might not normally do.

“Are ye gannin te cadge a lift of yoer fatha?”

Noun

A circular frame on which cadgers carry hawks for sale.

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

Etymology

From Middle English caggen (“to tie, fasten, bind”), probably from Old Norse. Compare Old Norse kǫgurr (“quilt”), kǫgurbarn (“swaddled child”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it KAJ.

Rhymes with BADGE MADGE

Related meanings

Synonyms bum sponge grub

Use CADGE in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 93.9% 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 CADGE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CADGE 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 84.1% of games, misses completely in 15.9%, and leaves about 145 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,479 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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 CADGE 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.

4.94 Entropy (bits)
145 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.9% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CADGE 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#3,479 Rank among openers
Opening with CADGE left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.64 average. It ranks #3,479 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
63
3 guesses
906
4 guesses
1,201
5 guesses
170
6 guesses
13

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AE

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
38%
All gray
16%

Feedback distribution

CADGE can come back 98 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

380 answers
271 answers
200 answers
146 answers
113 answers
85 answers
82 answers
78 answers
76 answers
67 answers
60 answers
58 answers
41 answers
40 answers
35 answers
34 answers
31 answers
31 answers
29 answers
26 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3A1D2G2E1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing CADGE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CADGE:

16% chance
Suggested:
HOIST
11% chance
Suggested:
RESET
8% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.9% →
HOIST 5.87 bits
11.4% →
RESET 5.45 bits
8.4% →
TRAIL 5.29 bits
6.1% →
TOISE 4.55 bits
4.7% →
SONLY 4.72 bits
3.6% →
TOUCH 4.65 bits
3.4% →
SLART 4.92 bits
3.3% →
GROUT 4.95 bits
3.2% →
WORLD 4.76 bits
2.8% →
SLART 4.55 bits

Research on CADGE

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

Optimal play

Opening with CADGE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,203 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 CADGE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, 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
CADGE sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

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).