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

CHAFE

Yes, CHAFE was the Wordle answer on December 2, 2022 (Wordle #531).

As an opener, it rules out about 93.0% of possible answers.

Open Solver with CHAFE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /t͡ʃeɪf/

Noun

Heat excited by friction.

Noun

Injury or wear caused by friction.

Verb

To excite heat in by friction; to rub in order to stimulate and make warm.

Verb

To excite passion or anger in; to fret; to irritate.

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: December 2, 2022 (#531).

See the full page for that puzzle: December 2, 2022 (#531).

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

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How CHAFE performs as a guess

CHAFE 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 83.4% of games, misses completely in 16.6%, and leaves about 167 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,813 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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__F_ C in the 1st position and F in the 4th position _H__E H in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe CHAFE 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.

4.79 Entropy (bits)
167 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
93.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 71% of evaluated openers
1.15 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CHAFE 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.

3.70 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#6,813 Rank among openers
Opening with CHAFE left 1 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 3.70 average. It ranks #6,813 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
59
3 guesses
852
4 guesses
1,194
5 guesses
229
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:
AE

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
37%
All gray
17%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L U M P
K N E E D
C H A F E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches CHAFE in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

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

395 answers
297 answers
258 answers
179 answers
120 answers
94 answers
69 answers
62 answers
56 answers
52 answers
48 answers
47 answers
38 answers
36 answers
30 answers
29 answers
28 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3H4A1F4E1
Total: 13 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Try next

SOILY DETER TALON GRISE ALTER SLANT

Strategy after playing CHAFE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CHAFE:

17% chance
Suggested:
SOILY
13% chance
Suggested:
DETER
11% chance
Suggested:
TALON

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.6% →
SOILY 5.71 bits
12.5% →
DETER 5.30 bits
10.9% →
TALON 5.31 bits
7.5% →
GRISE 4.46 bits
5.1% →
ALTER 4.67 bits
4.0% →
SLANT 4.60 bits
2.9% →
SOUTH 4.63 bits
2.6% →
SAULT 4.15 bits
2.4% →
SLART 3.83 bits
2.2% →
SOILY 4.60 bits

Research on CHAFE

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

Optimal play

Opening with CHAFE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,816 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 CHAFE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, 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 CHAYF.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CHAFE is a kind of tenderness or anger.

Synonyms bother DEVIL scratch rub gravel rag

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CHAFE 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 touch (3.2 of 5).

In a sentence

The shoes will chafe if you don't wear socks.
© tatoeba.org contributor mccarras (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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).