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

CARED

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

As an opener, it rules out about 95.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kɛɹd//kɛəd//keːd/

Verb

simple past and past participle of care

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

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

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

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

How CARED performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CARED 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 86.6% of games, misses completely in 13.4%, and leaves about 103 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #556 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.59 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 CARED 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.

5.42 Entropy (bits)
103 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 97% of evaluated openers
0.53 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CARED 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.

3.59 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#556 Rank among openers
Opening with CARED 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 3.59 average. It ranks #556 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
76
3 guesses
1,013
4 guesses
1,086
5 guesses
163
6 guesses
14
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.46 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AER

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
87%
Green tile
39%
All gray
13%

Feedback distribution

CARED can come back 123 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

317 answers
193 answers
145 answers
111 answers
108 answers
96 answers
95 answers
75 answers
73 answers
72 answers
69 answers
52 answers
45 answers
45 answers
42 answers
37 answers
35 answers
34 answers
33 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3A1R1E1D2
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing CARED

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CARED:

13% chance
Suggested:
SOILY
8% chance
Suggested:
STILE
6% chance
Suggested:
SLANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.4%
SOILY 5.75 bits
8.1%
STILE 5.37 bits
6.1%
SLANT 5.36 bits
4.7%
GROUT 5.00 bits
4.5%
SLANT 5.12 bits
4.0%
SOILY 3.53 bits
4.0%
SONLY 4.76 bits
3.2%
TOISE 4.61 bits
3.1%
SLANT 4.57 bits
3.0%
TWEEN 4.36 bits

Research on CARED

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

Optimal play

Opening with CARED, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.59 guesses and ranks #61 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 CARED can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, at or below the proven-optimal 3.59, 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

One syllable Say it KEHRD.

Rhymes with AIRED DARED LAIRD FARED ERRED

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CARED is a kind of work or judgment.

Synonyms like deal wish attention charge fear

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CARED sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 13 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.

In a sentence

No one cared about you.
© tatoeba.org contributor Lepotdeterre (CC BY 2.0 FR)
No one cared about it.
© tatoeba.org contributor rul (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).