CHAFF
CHAFF is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /t͡ʃæf//t͡ʃɑːf/
- Noun
-
The inedible parts of a grain-producing plant.
“To separate out the chaff, early cultures tossed baskets of grain into the air and let the wind blow away the lighter chaff.”
- Noun
-
Straw or hay cut up fine for the food of cattle.
- Verb
-
To use light, idle language by way of fun or ridicule; to banter.
- Verb
-
To make fun of; to turn into ridicule by addressing in ironical or bantering language.
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English chaf, from Old English ċeaf, from Proto-West Germanic *kaf. Cognate with Scots caff, Saterland Frisian Sääf, West Frisian tsjêf, Dutch kaf, German Low German Kaff, regional German Kaff.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it CHAF.
Rhymes with STAFF LAUGH GRAPH GRAFF GAFFE
Related meanings
Synonyms kid josh STRAW JOLLY banter STALK
In a sentence
You really are the chaff of humanity.
Old birds are not caught with chaff.
Use CHAFF in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 81.6% of possible answers.
Wordle status
A word can be a playable guess without being a possible answer.
Playable guess
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
No completed appearanceNo 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.
Wordle Observatory · optional
Played this Wordle?
Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds
Wordle Observatory · optional
Played this Wordle?
Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds
Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.
See the public dataThank you. Your result now helps describe this puzzle.
See what the public sample says →How CHAFF performs as a guess
CHAFF is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 63.2% of games, misses completely in 36.8%, and leaves about 439 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,208 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.85 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe CHAFF 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How CHAFF 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches CHAFF in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
CHAFF can come back 62 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for CHAFF; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing CHAFF
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to CHAFF.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing CHAFF:
Research on CHAFF
Game-tree analysis and word research for CHAFF, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with CHAFF, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.90 guesses and ranks #13,777 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 4.03 guesses at best and is rank #6,615 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.85, at or below the proven-optimal 3.90, 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
- CHAFF 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.
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).