5 FiveLetterWords
Accepted guess Not a possible answer B tier for first-turn info

FEARD

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.2% of possible answers.

Open Solver with FEARD Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

simple past and past participle of fear

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 FEARD performs as a guess

Wordle accepts FEARD 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 84.4% of games, misses completely in 15.6%, and leaves about 137 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,521 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.65 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.

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

F___D F in the 1st position and D in the 5th position F__R_ F in the 1st position and R in the 4th position _E__D E in the 2nd position and D in the 5th position

Try next

SOILY STOLE TALON TOISE GROUT SALET
Words starting with F Words ending with D

First-turn measures

All four describe FEARD 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.

5.05 Entropy (bits)
137 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 86% of evaluated openers
0.90 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How FEARD 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.

3.65 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#3,521 Rank among openers
Opening with FEARD left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.65 average. It ranks #3,521 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
82
3 guesses
899
4 guesses
1,157
5 guesses
199
6 guesses
15
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.45 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AER

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
34%
All gray
16%

Feedback distribution

FEARD can come back 116 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

368 answers
235 answers
201 answers
146 answers
134 answers
111 answers
89 answers
80 answers
61 answers
58 answers
50 answers
47 answers
44 answers
38 answers
36 answers
36 answers
32 answers
29 answers
29 answers
28 answers
24 answers
23 answers
21 answers
20 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FEARD:

16% chance
Suggested:
SOILY
10% chance
Suggested:
STOLE
9% chance
Suggested:
TALON

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.6% →
SOILY 5.74 bits
10.0% →
STOLE 5.39 bits
8.5% →
TALON 5.25 bits
6.2% →
TOISE 4.56 bits
5.7% →
GROUT 4.94 bits
4.7% →
SALET 4.54 bits
3.8% →
SLANT 4.66 bits
3.4% →
CAROL 4.63 bits
2.6% →
TENSE 4.05 bits
2.5% →
LATER 3.61 bits

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4E1A1R1D2
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

The science of FEARD

What game-tree analysis and word research measure about FEARD — each figure with what it means.

Optimal play

Opening with FEARD, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses — rank #2,466 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 FEARD can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.65 — at or below the proven-optimal 3.66 only 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) — not the site's working answer pool.

How it sounds

One syllable — say it FIHRD. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.