Accepted guess Not a possible answer C tier for first-turn info

FACTS

FACTS is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.

As an opener, it rules out about 92.1% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈfækts//ˈfæks/

Noun

plural of fact

Interjection

Used to express agreement.

Alternative forms: fax

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

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

Past Wordle answer

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

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

How FACTS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts FACTS as a guess, but the solver does not list it as a possible answer.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 79.1% of games, misses completely in 20.9%, and leaves about 188 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,458 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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 FACTS 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.

4.58 Entropy (bits)
188 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 57% of evaluated openers
1.37 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How FACTS 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.66 Spread of game lengths
#3,458 Rank among openers
Opening with FACTS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.66 means those games clustered within about 0.66 of a guess of the 3.64 average. It ranks #3,458 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
52
3 guesses
913
4 guesses
1,222
5 guesses
154
6 guesses
13
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
1 vowels
Common:
AST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
26%
All gray
21%

Feedback distribution

FACTS can come back 88 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

497 answers
234 answers
201 answers
159 answers
144 answers
128 answers
90 answers
79 answers
71 answers
56 answers
54 answers
52 answers
43 answers
41 answers
39 answers
36 answers
33 answers
31 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
16 answers
16 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4A1C3T1S1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing FACTS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FACTS:

21% chance
Suggested:
DROLE
10% chance
Suggested:
DROLE
8% chance
Suggested:
POIRE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.9%
DROLE 6.11 bits
9.9%
DROLE 5.52 bits
8.5%
POIRE 5.37 bits
6.7%
TONER 5.40 bits
6.1%
CRINE 5.29 bits
5.4%
LAYER 4.49 bits
3.8%
ROUET 4.71 bits
3.3%
PHARE 4.69 bits
3.0%
ARIEL 4.67 bits
2.4%
GOIER 4.67 bits

Research on FACTS

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

Optimal play

Opening with FACTS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,748 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with FACTS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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 FAKTS.

Rhymes with PACTS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, FACTS is a kind of information or info.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
FACTS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 52 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.

In a sentence

The facts are the facts.
© tatoeba.org contributor CM (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I had to get the facts.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (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).