CREEP
CREEP is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /kɹiːp/[kʰɹiːp]
- Verb
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To move slowly with the abdomen close to the ground.
“Lizards and snakes crept over the ground.”
- Verb
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To grow across a surface rather than upwards.
- Noun
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The movement of something that creeps (like worms or snails).
- Noun
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A relatively small gradual change, variation or deviation (from a planned value) in a measure.
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English crepen, from Old English crēopan (“to creep, crawl”), from Proto-West Germanic *kreupan, from Proto-Germanic *kreupaną (“to twist, creep”), from Proto-Indo-European *grewbʰ- (“to turn, wind”).
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it KREEP.
Rhymes with SLEEP CHEAP SHEEP STEEP SWEEP
Related meanings
Synonyms MOUSE SNEAK CRAWL crawling creeping cringe
In a sentence
Get off me, you creep!
You must think I'm a creep.
Use CREEP in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 91.4% 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 →CREEP in Connections
5 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #1159
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CREEP appeared in MOVE SLOWLY (UP TO) (green group).
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· Puzzle #1065
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CREEP appeared in MOVE STEALTHILY, WITH "IN" (yellow group).
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· Puzzle #807
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CREEP appeared in A REAL JERK (green group).
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· Puzzle #509
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CREEP appeared in PROGRESS SLOWLY (yellow group).
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· Puzzle #440
Reveal this appearance's category
CREEP appeared in MOVE STEALTHILY (green group).
How CREEP performs as a guess
CREEP 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 76.8% of games, misses completely in 23.2%, and leaves about 205 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,716 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.67 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 CREEP 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 CREEP 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 CREEP in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
CREEP can come back 102 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 CREEP; 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 CREEP
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to CREEP.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing CREEP:
Research on CREEP
Game-tree analysis and word research for CREEP, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with CREEP, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #4,308 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.84 guesses at best and is rank #2,601 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, at or below the proven-optimal 3.69, 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
- CREEP sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 7 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 8, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 51 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
- 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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).