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

CHILD

Yes, CHILD was the Wordle answer on December 29, 2023 (Wordle #923).

As an opener, it rules out about 90.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with CHILD Open Word Finder

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.

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 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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How CHILD performs as a guess

CHILD 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 73.3% of games, misses completely in 26.7%, and leaves about 235 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.

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___D C in the 1st position and D in the 5th position C__L_ C in the 1st position and L in the 4th position _H__D H in the 2nd position and D in the 5th position

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

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.

4.54 Entropy (bits)
235 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
90.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 55% of evaluated openers
1.40 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

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.

3.62 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#2,152 Rank among openers
Opening with CHILD left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.62 average. It ranks #2,152 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
50
3 guesses
998
4 guesses
1,102
5 guesses
189
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
1 vowels
Common:
IL

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
73%
Green tile
31%
All gray
27%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I M Y
D O U G H
C H I L D

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:

635 answers
246 answers
153 answers
113 answers
112 answers
89 answers
87 answers
73 answers
73 answers
58 answers
57 answers
46 answers
39 answers
39 answers
31 answers
31 answers
27 answers
25 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
20 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
13 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3H4I1L1D2
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Try next

TARSE ROATE RINSE STANE STARE SAUTE

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:

27% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
10% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
6% chance
Suggested:
RINSE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

26.7% →
TARSE 6.43 bits
10.4% →
ROATE 5.39 bits
6.4% →
RINSE 5.39 bits
4.8% →
ROATE 5.27 bits
4.7% →
STANE 5.22 bits
3.7% →
TARSE 5.37 bits
3.7% →
STARE 5.45 bits
3.1% →
SAUTE 4.86 bits
3.1% →
PORAE 5.07 bits
2.4% →
TORSE 5.11 bits

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.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it CHYLD.

Rhymes with FILED PILED TILED RILED

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CHILD is a kind of juvenile or issue.

Synonyms baby kid MINOR fry youngster

Opposites parent

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).

In a sentence

He is not a child.
© tatoeba.org contributor shekitten (CC BY 2.0 FR)
He is but a child.
© tatoeba.org contributor CM (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).