FETUS
FETUS is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.
As an opener, it rules out about 92.2% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈfiːtəs/
- Noun
-
An unborn or unhatched vertebrate showing signs of the mature animal.
- Noun
-
A human embryo after the eighth week of gestation.
“The sequence is: molecules in reproductive systems, then gametes, zygotes, morulas, blastocysts, and then fetuses.”
Alternative forms: foetus, fœtus, faetus, fætus
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 FETUS performs as a guess
FETUS 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 81.3% of games, misses completely in 18.7%, and leaves about 186 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,527 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.71 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 FETUS 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 FETUS 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 FETUS in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
FETUS can come back 90 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 FETUS; 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 FETUS
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to FETUS.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing FETUS:
Research on FETUS
Game-tree analysis and word research for FETUS, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with FETUS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #7,213 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.85 guesses at best and is rank #2,983 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.71, at or below the proven-optimal 3.73, 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
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it FEETUHS.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, FETUS is a kind of animal.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- FETUS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 4 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
In a sentence
A fetus is not a person.
A fetus is not a baby.
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).