FATAL
FATAL is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈfeɪ.təl/[ˈfeɪ.ɾɫ̩]
- Adjective
-
Causing death or destruction.
“a fatal wound; a fatal disease; that fatal day; a fatal mistake”
- Adjective
-
Causing a sudden end to the running of a program.
“a fatal error; a fatal exception”
- Noun
-
A fatality; an event that leads to death.
- Noun
-
A fatal error; a failure that causes a program to terminate.
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle French fatal, from Latin fātālis (“fatal”).
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it FAYTUHL.
Rhymes with NATAL
Related meanings
Synonyms BLACK disastrous fateful terminal deadly unfortunate
Opposites fortunate
In a sentence
A fall would be fatal.
But the results can be fatal.
Use FATAL in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 88.8% 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 FATAL performs as a guess
FATAL 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 72.7% of games, misses completely in 27.3%, and leaves about 267 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,536 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.73 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 FATAL 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 FATAL 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 FATAL in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
FATAL 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 FATAL; 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 FATAL
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to FATAL.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing FATAL:
Research on FATAL
Game-tree analysis and word research for FATAL, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with FATAL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,770 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 FATAL can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, at or below the proven-optimal 3.78, 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
- FATAL sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 13 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 10, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 49 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.9 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).