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

CLOSE

Yes, CLOSE was the Wordle answer on September 19, 2023 (Wordle #822).

As an opener, it rules out about 95.8% of possible answers.

Open Solver with CLOSE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈkləʊz/[ˈkʰl̥əʊ̯z]/ˈklɵʊ̯z/

Verb

To remove or block an opening, gap or passage through.

“Close the door behind you when you leave.”

Verb

To finish.

“The committee chairman made a few concluding remarks and then closed the session.”

Noun

An end or conclusion.

“We owe them our thanks for bringing the project to a successful close.”

Noun

The manner of shutting; the union of parts; junction.

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: September 19, 2023 (#822).

See the full page for that puzzle: September 19, 2023 (#822).

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

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How CLOSE performs as a guess

CLOSE 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 89.2% of games, misses completely in 10.8%, and leaves about 99 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #407 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.58 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___E C in the 1st position and E in the 5th position C__S_ C in the 1st position and S in the 4th position _L__E L in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe CLOSE 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.

5.42 Entropy (bits)
99 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
95.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 97% of evaluated openers
0.53 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CLOSE 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.

3.58 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#407 Rank among openers
Opening with CLOSE left 1 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 3.58 average. It ranks #407 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
76
3 guesses
1,009
4 guesses
1,110
5 guesses
140
6 guesses
17
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:
ELOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
89%
Green tile
40%
All gray
11%

Example solver route

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

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches CLOSE in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

CLOSE can come back 118 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

256 answers
238 answers
155 answers
120 answers
117 answers
103 answers
95 answers
71 answers
60 answers
59 answers
54 answers
48 answers
48 answers
47 answers
45 answers
42 answers
39 answers
38 answers
33 answers
32 answers
29 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3L1O1S1E1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

TRAIN DETER RAINY GRATE SAINT RENAL

Strategy after playing CLOSE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CLOSE:

11% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
10% chance
Suggested:
DETER
7% chance
Suggested:
RAINY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

10.8% →
TRAIN 5.89 bits
10.0% →
DETER 5.42 bits
6.5% →
RAINY 5.02 bits
5.1% →
GRATE 4.55 bits
4.9% →
SAINT 5.13 bits
4.3% →
RAINY 4.72 bits
4.0% →
RENAL 4.70 bits
3.0% →
STEER 4.77 bits
2.5% →
RAINY 4.47 bits
2.5% →
TROOP 4.03 bits

Research on CLOSE

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

Optimal play

Opening with CLOSE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.60 guesses and ranks #222 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.74 guesses at best and is rank #242 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.58, at or below the proven-optimal 3.60, 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 KLOHS.

Rhymes with GROSS ADIOS GROSZ BOWSE

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CLOSE is a kind of end or section.

Synonyms last end near finish shut ending

Opposites distant open long public

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CLOSE sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 229 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 6, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 59 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.8 of 5).

In a sentence

That was a close one.
© tatoeba.org contributor Spamster (CC BY 2.0 FR)
You had to close it.
© tatoeba.org contributor rul (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).