5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess B tier for first-turn info

CARVE

Yes, CARVE was the Wordle answer on October 10, 2024 (Wordle #1209).

As an opener, it rules out about 94.6% of possible answers.

Open Solver with CARVE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kɑɹv//kɑːv/

Verb

To cut meat in order to serve it.

“You carve the roast and I’ll serve the vegetables.”

Verb

To shape to sculptural effect; to produce (a work) by cutting, or to cut (a material) into a finished work, especially with cuts that are curved rather than only straight slices.

“to carve a name into a tree”

Noun

The act of carving

“Give that turkey a careful carve.”

Noun

A carucate.

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: October 10, 2024 (#1209).

See the full page for that puzzle: October 10, 2024 (#1209).

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

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How verification and withdrawal work

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How CARVE performs as a guess

CARVE 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 84.1% of games, misses completely in 15.9%, and leaves about 129 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,098 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.67 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

C___E C in the 1st position and E in the 5th position C__V_ C in the 1st position and V in the 4th position _A__E A in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in CARVE.

First-turn measures

All four describe CARVE 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.

5.13 Entropy (bits)
129 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
94.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 89% of evaluated openers
0.82 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CARVE 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.

3.67 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#5,098 Rank among openers
Opening with CARVE left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.67 average. It ranks #5,098 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
81
3 guesses
876
4 guesses
1,145
5 guesses
232
6 guesses
18
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)
84%
Green tile
40%
All gray
16%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S U R G E
C A R V E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches CARVE in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

CARVE can come back 120 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

378 answers
184 answers
158 answers
136 answers
134 answers
128 answers
106 answers
91 answers
74 answers
73 answers
59 answers
48 answers
45 answers
43 answers
39 answers
29 answers
28 answers
26 answers
25 answers
25 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3A1R1V4E1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Try next

SOILY INLET SLANT SOLED DROIT SONLY

Strategy after playing CARVE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CARVE:

16% chance
Suggested:
SOILY
8% chance
Suggested:
INLET
7% chance
Suggested:
SLANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.9% →
SOILY 5.67 bits
7.8% →
INLET 5.14 bits
6.7% →
SLANT 5.40 bits
5.7% →
SOLED 3.89 bits
5.6% →
DROIT 4.99 bits
5.4% →
SOILY 4.65 bits
4.5% →
SONLY 4.60 bits
3.8% →
SLANT 4.44 bits
3.1% →
TOUCH 4.57 bits
3.1% →
SLANT 4.64 bits

Research on CARVE

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

Optimal play

Opening with CARVE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,219 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 CARVE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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 KAHRV.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CARVE is a kind of work or cut.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CARVE sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 3 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 9, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 66 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.5 of 5).

In a sentence

Can you carve the chicken?
© tatoeba.org contributor Hybrid (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Can I carve the turkey?
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).