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

FALLS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 87.9% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /fɔːlz//faːlz//fɔlz/

Noun

A waterfall.

Noun

plural of fall

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of fall

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 FALLS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts FALLS 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 71.9% of games, misses completely in 28.1%, and leaves about 288 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,444 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.77 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 FALLS 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.

4.04 Entropy (bits)
288 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 24% of evaluated openers
1.91 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How FALLS 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.

3.77 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#10,444 Rank among openers
Opening with FALLS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.77 average. It ranks #10,444 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
39
3 guesses
771
4 guesses
1,247
5 guesses
281
6 guesses
15
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

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ALS

Feedback chances

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

Feedback distribution

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

668 answers
286 answers
254 answers
177 answers
142 answers
121 answers
107 answers
50 answers
46 answers
41 answers
35 answers
32 answers
31 answers
27 answers
21 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4A1L1L1S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing FALLS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FALLS:

28% chance
Suggested:
TRONE
12% chance
Suggested:
ROUET
11% chance
Suggested:
TRONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

28.1%
TRONE 6.14 bits
12.0%
ROUET 5.59 bits
10.7%
TRONE 5.59 bits
7.5%
RONTE 4.87 bits
6.0%
NOIRE 4.98 bits
5.1%
PEART 4.92 bits
4.5%
TRINE 4.73 bits
2.1%
URINE 4.68 bits
1.9%
URITE 4.53 bits
1.7%
SPITE 4.04 bits

Research on FALLS

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

Optimal play

Opening with FALLS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.81 guesses and ranks #11,214 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 FALLS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.77, at or below the proven-optimal 3.81, 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 FAWLZ.

Rhymes with CALLS WALLS BALLS HALLS MALLS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, FALLS is a kind of cover or water.

Synonyms waterfall

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
FALLS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 43 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.2 of 5).

In a sentence

He often falls in love.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
It's late and night falls.
© tatoeba.org contributor Adelpa (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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).