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

CHACK

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /t͡ʃæk/

Verb

To toss up the head frequently, as a horse to avoid the restraint of the bridle.

Verb

To not broadcast a medal-winning or otherwise memorable or crucial figure skating performance. This only occurs in a live broadcast because the network has to decide which programs to show and which to cut in the interest of time. If a skater is low in the rankings and several big names are set to skate later, that performance may be cut.

Noun

A snack or light hasty meal.

Noun

A cheek (part of the face).

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

Etymology

From Michael Chack, an American figure skater whose bronze-medal-winning performance at the 1993 US National Championships was not broadcast on television because the producers did not think he would win a medal.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use CHACK in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 80.4% of possible answers.

Open Solver with CHACK Open Word Finder

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 CHACK performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CHACK 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 61.3% of games, misses completely in 38.7%, and leaves about 467 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,305 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.86 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__C_ C in the 1st position and C in the 4th position _H__K H in the 2nd position and K in the 5th position CH_CK C in the 1st position, H in the 2nd position, C in the 4th position, and K in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe CHACK 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.

3.52 Entropy (bits)
467 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
80.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CHACK 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.

3.86 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#13,305 Rank among openers
Opening with CHACK solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.86 average. It ranks #13,305 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
32
3 guesses
691
4 guesses
1,236
5 guesses
369
6 guesses
26

Composition

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
A

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
61%
Green tile
29%
All gray
39%

Feedback distribution

CHACK can come back 63 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

922 answers
445 answers
167 answers
107 answers
69 answers
68 answers
55 answers
48 answers
41 answers
38 answers
37 answers
35 answers
28 answers
23 answers
23 answers
20 answers
20 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3H4A1C3K5
Total: 16 points

Words With Friends

Total: 17 points

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

Try next

TOILE TALER STIRE ROUTE TRONE TORSE

Strategy after playing CHACK

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CHACK:

39% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
19% chance
Suggested:
TALER
7% chance
Suggested:
STIRE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

38.7% →
TOILE 5.98 bits
18.7% →
TALER 5.54 bits
7.0% →
STIRE 5.19 bits
4.5% →
ROUTE 5.11 bits
2.9% →
TRONE 4.94 bits
2.9% →
TORSE 5.25 bits
2.3% →
RIONE 4.83 bits
2.0% →
SLIER 4.66 bits
1.7% →
TUILE 3.72 bits
1.6% →
TONER 4.42 bits

Research on CHACK

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

Optimal play

Opening with CHACK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.89 guesses and ranks #13,660 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 CHACK can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.86, at or below the proven-optimal 3.89, 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
CHACK 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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).