CREEK
CREEK is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈkɹiːk/[kʰɹʷɪi̯k]/ˈkɹɪk/
- Noun
-
A small inlet, often saltwater, leading to the sea or to the main channel of a river, especially a river estuary.
- Noun
-
The inner part of a port that is used as a dock for small boats.
Alternative forms: crick, crike, cryke, crik
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English crike, probably from Old Norse kriki, from Proto-Germanic *krikjô, variant of krekô, from Proto-Indo-European *ger- (“to turn, to wind”); the modern form creek (already late Middle English creke) either reflects open-syllable lengthening of Middle English /i/ or reborrowing from Middle Dutch krēke., Compare typologically English bight, akin to bend, bow.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it KREEK.
Rhymes with SPEAK GREEK FREAK SNEAK CHEEK
Related meanings
Synonyms BROOK
In a sentence
The creek had red water.
Let's go down to the creek.
Use CREEK in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 89.9% 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
No completed appearanceNo 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.
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See what the public sample says →How CREEK performs as a guess
CREEK 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 74.2% of games, misses completely in 25.8%, and leaves about 241 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,332 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.75 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 CREEK 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 CREEK 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 CREEK in 5 guesses. See the trap-family guide for similar endgames.
Feedback distribution
CREEK can come back 85 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 CREEK; 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 CREEK
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to CREEK.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing CREEK:
Research on CREEK
Game-tree analysis and word research for CREEK, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with CREEK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,092 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.92 guesses at best and is rank #4,697 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.75, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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
- CREEK sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 23 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.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 8, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 80 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.8 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).