CRICK
CRICK is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.
As an opener, it rules out about 85.4% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /kɹɪk/
- Noun
-
A painful stiffness in some part of the body, like the neck or back, which makes it difficult to move the affected body part for some time; a cramp.
- Noun
-
A small jackscrew.
- Verb
-
To develop a crick (cramp, spasm).
- Verb
-
To cause to develop a crick; to create a crick in.
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Not used yetNo past answer date found.
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 CRICK performs as a guess
CRICK 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 68.2% of games, misses completely in 31.8%, and leaves about 347 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,757 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.78 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 CRICK 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 CRICK 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 CRICK in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
CRICK can come back 67 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 CRICK; 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 CRICK
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to CRICK.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing CRICK:
Research on CRICK
Game-tree analysis and word research for CRICK, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with CRICK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.83 guesses and ranks #12,063 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.99 guesses at best and is rank #6,076 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.78, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, CRICK is a kind of cramp or twist.
Synonyms rick kink
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- CRICK sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.
In a sentence
I woke up with a crick in my neck.
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).