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

CAULK

Yes, CAULK was the Wordle answer on February 16, 2022 (Wordle #242).

As an opener, it rules out about 90.7% of possible answers.

Open Solver with CAULK Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kɔːk//kɔk//kɑk/

Noun

Caulking.

Noun

A composition of vehicle and pigment used at ambient temperatures for filling/sealing joints or junctures, that remains elastic for an extended period of time after application.

Verb

To drive oakum into the seams of a ship's wooden deck or hull to make it watertight.

Verb

To apply caulking to joints, cracks, or a juncture of different materials.

Alternative forms: calk

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: February 16, 2022 (#242).

See the full page for that puzzle: February 16, 2022 (#242).

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

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How CAULK performs as a guess

CAULK 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 75.4% of games, misses completely in 24.6%, and leaves about 220 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,603 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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___K C in the 1st position and K in the 5th position C__L_ C in the 1st position and L in the 4th position _A__K A in the 2nd position and K in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe CAULK 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.

4.57 Entropy (bits)
220 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
90.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 57% of evaluated openers
1.37 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CAULK 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#5,603 Rank among openers
Opening with CAULK left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.68 average. It ranks #5,603 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
57
3 guesses
901
4 guesses
1,144
5 guesses
234
6 guesses
15
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:
ALU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
75%
Green tile
34%
All gray
25%

Example solver route

R O A T E
N A S A L
D I M L Y
C A U L K

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches CAULK in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

CAULK can come back 102 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

585 answers
255 answers
156 answers
153 answers
149 answers
125 answers
76 answers
66 answers
64 answers
49 answers
48 answers
35 answers
34 answers
29 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3A1U1L1K5
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 14 points

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

Try next

TRONE STORE SURGE GOIER RONTE TIARE

Strategy after playing CAULK

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CAULK:

25% chance
Suggested:
TRONE
11% chance
Suggested:
STORE
7% chance
Suggested:
SURGE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

24.6% →
TRONE 6.20 bits
10.7% →
STORE 5.60 bits
6.6% →
SURGE 5.20 bits
6.4% →
GOIER 5.02 bits
6.3% →
RONTE 4.84 bits
5.3% →
TIARE 4.64 bits
3.2% →
TRICE 5.01 bits
2.8% →
SWIRE 4.41 bits
2.7% →
STONE 4.66 bits
2.1% →
IRONE 4.82 bits

Research on CAULK

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

Optimal play

Opening with CAULK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,463 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.83 guesses at best and is rank #2,160 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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 KAHK.

Rhymes with STOCK BLOCK SHOCK CLOCK KNOCK

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CAULK is a kind of stuff or seal.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CAULK sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.2 of 5).

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).