5 FiveLetterWords
Accepted guess Not a possible answer F tier for first-turn info

CHUFF

CHUFF is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.

As an opener, it rules out about 72.9% of possible answers.

Open Solver with CHUFF Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /t͡ʃʌf//t͡ʃɐf//t͡ʃʊf/

Adjective

Surly; annoyed; displeased; disgruntled.

Adverb

In a chuff manner.

Noun

A coarse or stupid fellow.

Verb

To make noisy puffing sounds, as of a steam locomotive.

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

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

Past Wordle answer

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

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

How CHUFF performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CHUFF as a guess, but the solver does not list it as a possible answer.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 50.0% of games, misses completely in 50.0%, and leaves about 644 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,977 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.90 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___F C in the 1st position and F in the 5th position C__F_ C in the 1st position and F in the 4th position _H__F H in the 2nd position and F in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe CHUFF 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.

3.07 Entropy (bits)
644 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
72.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 2% of evaluated openers
2.87 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CHUFF 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.

3.90 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#13,977 Rank among openers
Opening with CHUFF left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.90 average. It ranks #13,977 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
26
3 guesses
645
4 guesses
1,248
5 guesses
406
6 guesses
27
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
1 vowels
Common:
U

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
50%
Green tile
20%
All gray
50%

Feedback distribution

CHUFF can come back 51 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

1187 answers
202 answers
132 answers
121 answers
118 answers
100 answers
95 answers
84 answers
45 answers
32 answers
26 answers
20 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
8 answers
8 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
4 answers
4 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3H4U1F4F4
Total: 16 points

Words With Friends

Total: 17 points

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

Try next

RAILE STRAE TIARE ROATE ROAKE ARIEL

Strategy after playing CHUFF

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CHUFF:

50% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
9% chance
Suggested:
STRAE
6% chance
Suggested:
TIARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

50.0% →
RAILE 6.12 bits
8.5% →
STRAE 5.00 bits
5.6% →
TIARE 5.42 bits
5.1% →
ROATE 5.54 bits
5.0% →
ROAKE 5.07 bits
4.2% →
ARIEL 5.50 bits
4.0% →
SLART 5.03 bits
3.5% →
TARSE 5.08 bits
1.9% →
POTAE 4.31 bits
1.3% →
ARISE 4.20 bits

Research on CHUFF

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

Optimal play

Opening with CHUFF, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.95 guesses and ranks #14,405 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.07 guesses at best and is rank #6,974 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.90, at or below the proven-optimal 3.95, 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 CHUHF. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CHUFF is a kind of blow.

Synonyms puff huff

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CHUFF sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).