FEWER
Yes, FEWER was the Wordle answer on April 3, 2022 (Wordle #288).
As an opener, it rules out about 86.6% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈfjuː.ɚ/
- Determiner
-
comparative degree of few; a smaller number.
“Fewer women wear hats these days.”
- Determiner
-
Less; a smaller amount of something non-integral commonly expressed as an integer
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
Used oncePast Wordle answer: April 3, 2022 (#288).
See the full page for that puzzle: April 3, 2022 (#288).
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 FEWER performs as a guess
FEWER 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 69.5% of games, misses completely in 30.5%, and leaves about 317 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,943 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.78 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 FEWER 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 FEWER 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 FEWER in 5 guesses. See the trap-family guide for similar endgames.
Feedback distribution
FEWER can come back 77 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 FEWER; 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 FEWER
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to FEWER.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing FEWER:
Research on FEWER
Game-tree analysis and word research for FEWER, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with FEWER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.81 guesses and ranks #11,245 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 FEWER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.78, 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
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it FYOOUR.
Related meanings
Synonyms less
Opposites more
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- FEWER sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 20 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
In a sentence
I have fewer than you.
I have fewer than you have.
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).