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

CHEAT

Yes, CHEAT was the Wordle answer on December 2, 2021 (Wordle #166).

As an opener, it rules out about 94.2% of possible answers.

Open Solver with CHEAT Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈt͡ʃiːt/[ˈt͡ʃʰɪi̯t]

Verb

To violate rules in order to gain, or attempt to gain, advantage from a situation.

“My brother flunked biology because he cheated on his mid-term.”

Verb

To be unfaithful to one's spouse or partner; to commit adultery, or to engage in sexual or romantic conduct with a person other than one's partner in contravention of the rules of society or agreement in the relationship.

“My husband cheated on me with his secretary.”

Noun

An act of deception or fraud; that which is the means of fraud or deception.

Noun

Someone who cheats.

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, 2021 (#166).

See the full page for that puzzle: December 2, 2021 (#166).

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

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How verification and withdrawal work

The answer word and timezone are used transiently to verify this page, then discarded. The receipt prevents duplicate submissions and lets this browser withdraw later; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. Read the full privacy details.

How CHEAT performs as a guess

CHEAT 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 86.8% of games, misses completely in 13.2%, and leaves about 138 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,900 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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___T C in the 1st position and T in the 5th position C__A_ C in the 1st position and A in the 4th position _H__T H in the 2nd position and T in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe CHEAT 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.

5.17 Entropy (bits)
138 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
94.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 91% of evaluated openers
0.78 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CHEAT 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#2,900 Rank among openers
Opening with CHEAT left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.64 average. It ranks #2,900 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
73
3 guesses
955
4 guesses
1,089
5 guesses
223
6 guesses
12
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:
AET

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
87%
Green tile
32%
All gray
13%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S P L A T
C H E A T

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches CHEAT in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

CHEAT can come back 124 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

337 answers
313 answers
213 answers
160 answers
80 answers
73 answers
72 answers
60 answers
54 answers
49 answers
45 answers
45 answers
43 answers
43 answers
39 answers
34 answers
31 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
25 answers
23 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3H4E1A1T1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Try next

RIONE SOLID SALON GLARE POIRE SOILY

Strategy after playing CHEAT

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CHEAT:

14% chance
Suggested:
RIONE
13% chance
Suggested:
SOLID
9% chance
Suggested:
SALON

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.2% →
RIONE 5.32 bits
13.2% →
SOLID 5.54 bits
9.0% →
SALON 5.05 bits
6.7% →
GLARE 4.72 bits
3.4% →
POIRE 4.56 bits
3.1% →
SOILY 4.65 bits
3.0% →
SOILY 4.65 bits
2.5% →
SATIN 4.26 bits
2.3% →
SLIER 4.31 bits
2.1% →
SONLY 4.49 bits

Research on CHEAT

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

Optimal play

Opening with CHEAT, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,855 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 CHEAT can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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 CHEET.

Rhymes with SWEET TREAT ELITE SHEET FLEET

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CHEAT is a kind of grass or offender.

Synonyms FRAUD SCREW cheating CHESS SHAFT rig

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CHEAT sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 11 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.6 of 5).

In a sentence

Did he cheat on you?
© tatoeba.org contributor Hybrid (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Did you cheat on me?
© tatoeba.org contributor Spamster (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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).