CHILD
Yes, CHILD was the Wordle answer on December 29, 2023 (Wordle #923).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈtʃaɪld/[ˈt͡ʃʰaɪ̯ɫd]/ˈt͡ʃɑɪ̯ld/
- Noun
-
A person who has not yet reached adulthood, whether natural (puberty), cultural (initiation), or legal (majority).
“Go easy on him: he is but a child.”
- Noun
-
One's direct descendant by birth, regardless of age; one's offspring; a son or daughter.
“My youngest child is forty-three this year.”
- Verb
-
To give birth; to beget or procreate.
Alternative forms: childe, chile, childrens, childs
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English child, from Old English ċild, from Proto-West Germanic *kilþ, *kelþ, from Proto-Germanic *kelþaz (“womb; fetus”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵelt- (“womb”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to ball up, amass”).
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it CHYLD.
Rhymes with FILED PILED TILED RILED
Related meanings
Synonyms baby kid MINOR fry youngster
Opposites parent
In a sentence
He is not a child.
He is but a child.
Use CHILD in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 90.0% 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: December 29, 2023 (#923).
See the full page for that puzzle: December 29, 2023 (#923).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How CHILD performs as a guess
CHILD 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 73.1% of games, misses completely in 26.9%, and leaves about 238 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,152 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 CHILD 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 CHILD 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 CHILD in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
CHILD can come back 94 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 CHILD; 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 CHILD
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to CHILD.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing CHILD:
Research on CHILD
Game-tree analysis and word research for CHILD, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with CHILD, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,629 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 CHILD can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, 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.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- CHILD sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 200 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 A1); among the first words English learners study.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 4, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 94 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.2 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).