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

CHEEK

Yes, CHEEK was the Wordle answer on April 16, 2022 (Wordle #301).

As an opener, it rules out about 85.4% of possible answers.

Open Solver with CHEEK Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /t͡ʃiːk/

Noun

The soft skin on each side of the face, below the eyes; the outer surface of the sides of the oral cavity.

Noun

The lower part of the buttocks that is often exposed beneath very brief underwear, swimwear, or extremely short shorts.

Verb

To be impudent towards.

“Don't cheek me, you little rascal!”

Verb

To pull a horse's head back toward the saddle using the cheek strap of the bridle.

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: April 16, 2022 (#301).

See the full page for that puzzle: April 16, 2022 (#301).

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

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How CHEEK performs as a guess

CHEEK 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 67.3% of games, misses completely in 32.7%, and leaves about 347 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,715 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.83 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__E_ C in the 1st position and E in the 4th position _H__K H in the 2nd position and K in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe CHEEK 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.

3.97 Entropy (bits)
347 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
85.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 21% of evaluated openers
1.98 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CHEEK 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.

3.83 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#12,715 Rank among openers
Opening with CHEEK 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 3.83 average. It ranks #12,715 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
36
3 guesses
716
4 guesses
1,233
5 guesses
340
6 guesses
28
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
E

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
67%
Green tile
33%
All gray
33%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S I L E N
C H E E K

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches CHEEK in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

CHEEK can come back 75 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

776 answers
377 answers
178 answers
111 answers
78 answers
73 answers
62 answers
50 answers
46 answers
44 answers
43 answers
43 answers
36 answers
34 answers
33 answers
28 answers
27 answers
25 answers
23 answers
22 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3H4E1E1K5
Total: 14 points

Words With Friends

Total: 14 points

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

Try next

TALON RAILE SOLAR ROAST ROANY SONAR

Strategy after playing CHEEK

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CHEEK:

33% chance
Suggested:
TALON
16% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
7% chance
Suggested:
SOLAR

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

32.7% →
TALON 5.86 bits
15.9% →
RAILE 5.23 bits
7.5% →
SOLAR 4.62 bits
4.7% →
ROAST 5.02 bits
3.3% →
ROANY 4.90 bits
3.1% →
SONAR 5.00 bits
2.6% →
SLART 5.02 bits
2.1% →
TIARE 4.52 bits
1.9% →
REAST 4.18 bits
1.9% →
SAUNT 3.54 bits

Research on CHEEK

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

Optimal play

Opening with CHEEK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.82 guesses and ranks #11,647 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.99 guesses at best and is rank #5,973 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.83; proven optimal play reaches 3.82. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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 CHEEK.

Rhymes with SPEAK GREEK CREEK FREAK SNEAK

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CHEEK is a kind of feature or disrespect.

Synonyms face NERVE BRASS

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CHEEK sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 9 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
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 4, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 86 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.9 of 5).

In a sentence

Kiss me on the cheek.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
He has plenty of cheek.
© tatoeba.org contributor sundown (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; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).