CHEAP
Yes, CHEAP was the Wordle answer on January 3, 2025 (Wordle #1294).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈt͡ʃiːp/[ˈt͡ʃʰɪi̯p]
- Adjective
-
Low or reduced in price.
- Adjective
-
Of poor quality.
- Noun
-
Trade; traffic; chaffer; chaffering.
- Noun
-
A market; marketplace.
Alternative forms: chap, chop, ch3ap
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
As a noun, from Middle English chep, from Old English cēap (“trade, market, value”), from Proto-West Germanic *kaup. As a verb, from Middle English chepen, from Old English ċēapian (“to buy, bargain, trade”), from Proto-West Germanic *kaupōn, from Proto-Germanic *kaupōną, a verbal derivative of *kaupô (“trader”), from Latin caupō.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it CHEEP.
Rhymes with SLEEP SHEEP STEEP SWEEP CREEP
Related meanings
Synonyms loud FLASH punk bum cheesy inexpensive
Opposites expensive superior generous tasteful
In a sentence
It's not that cheap now.
Why is this so cheap?
Use CHEAP in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 92.4% 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
Used oncePast Wordle answer: January 3, 2025 (#1294).
See the full page for that puzzle: January 3, 2025 (#1294).
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 →CHEAP in Connections
1 recorded appearance in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
-
· Puzzle #1072
Reveal this appearance's category
CHEAP appeared in FRUIT ANAGRAMS (purple group).
How CHEAP performs as a guess
CHEAP 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 84.2% of games, misses completely in 15.8%, and leaves about 180 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,099 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe CHEAP 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 CHEAP 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 CHEAP in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
CHEAP can come back 107 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 CHEAP; 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 CHEAP
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to CHEAP.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing CHEAP:
Research on CHEAP
Game-tree analysis and word research for CHEAP, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with CHEAP, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,368 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 CHEAP can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, 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.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- CHEAP sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 51 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Learner level
- Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A2); among the first words English learners study.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 6, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 36 of 100. Raters found it difficult to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.8 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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).