Possible answer Not used yet C tier for first-turn info

CRACK

CRACK is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kɹæk/

Verb

To form cracks.

“It's been so dry, the ground is starting to crack.”

Verb

To break apart under force, stress, or pressure.

“When I tried to stand on the chair, it cracked.”

Noun

A thin and usually jagged space opened in a previously solid material.

“A large crack had formed in the roadway.”

Noun

A narrow opening.

“We managed to squeeze through a crack in the rock wall.”

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

Slang first attested 1793, perhaps from the verb in the sense of doing something quickly or with intelligence, or in the sense of "speaking boastingly" and having something to be proud of.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it KRAK.

Rhymes with BLACK TRACK STACK SNACK SLACK

Related meanings

Synonyms go CHECK shot BREAK SUPER OFFER

Opposites inferior

In a sentence

Take a crack at it.
© tatoeba.org contributor mak (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I'm not going to crack.
© tatoeba.org contributor rul (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use CRACK in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 87.4% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

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

CRACK in Connections

3 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.

How CRACK performs as a guess

CRACK 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 71.6% of games, misses completely in 28.4%, and leaves about 300 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,541 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.80 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe CRACK 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.

4.03 Entropy (bits)
300 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
87.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CRACK 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.

3.80 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#11,541 Rank among openers
Opening with CRACK left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.80 average. It ranks #11,541 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
32
3 guesses
768
4 guesses
1,217
5 guesses
309
6 guesses
25

Composition

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
AR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
72%
Green tile
32%
All gray
28%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S W I N G
M U L C H
C R A C K

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches CRACK in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

CRACK can come back 74 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

676 answers
318 answers
299 answers
141 answers
123 answers
122 answers
58 answers
43 answers
43 answers
42 answers
40 answers
39 answers
32 answers
26 answers
26 answers
26 answers
20 answers
17 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3R1A1C3K5
Total: 13 points

Words With Friends

Total: 15 points

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

Strategy after playing CRACK

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CRACK:

28% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
13% chance
Suggested:
SALET
13% chance
Suggested:
SOREE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

28.4% →
TOILE 6.13 bits
13.3% →
SALET 5.40 bits
12.5% →
SOREE 5.11 bits
5.9% →
TALER 4.68 bits
5.2% →
STILE 5.37 bits
5.1% →
SPITE 4.71 bits
2.4% →
TUILE 4.45 bits
1.8% →
SIENT 3.74 bits
1.8% →
TOILE 4.61 bits
1.8% →
TOILE 4.69 bits

Research on CRACK

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

Optimal play

Opening with CRACK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.83 guesses and ranks #12,049 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.98 guesses at best and is rank #5,808 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.80, at or below the proven-optimal 3.83, 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
CRACK sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 26 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.2 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; Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).