5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess F tier for first-turn info

FILLY

Yes, FILLY was the Wordle answer on January 5, 2026 (Wordle #1661).

As an opener, it rules out about 82.2% of possible answers.

Open Solver with FILLY Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈfɪli/

Noun

A young female horse.

Noun

A young, attractive woman.

“Hey, Homer, get a load of the gams on that filly!”

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: January 5, 2026 (#1661).

See the full page for that puzzle: January 5, 2026 (#1661).

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

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How FILLY performs as a guess

FILLY 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 62.3% of games, misses completely in 37.7%, and leaves about 424 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,057 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.85 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

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

F___Y F in the 1st position and Y in the 5th position F__L_ F in the 1st position and L in the 4th position _I__Y I in the 2nd position and Y in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in FILLY.

First-turn measures

All four describe FILLY 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.

3.65 Entropy (bits)
424 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
82.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 10% of evaluated openers
2.30 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How FILLY 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.

3.85 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.75 Spread of game lengths
#13,057 Rank among openers
Opening with FILLY left 4 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.75 means those games clustered within about 0.75 of a guess of the 3.85 average. It ranks #13,057 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
43
3 guesses
701
4 guesses
1,208
5 guesses
367
6 guesses
30
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:
IL

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
62%
Green tile
33%
All gray
38%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I M Y
B A W D Y
F I L L Y

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches FILLY in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

FILLY can come back 78 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

895 answers
276 answers
240 answers
203 answers
113 answers
62 answers
46 answers
43 answers
38 answers
31 answers
31 answers
31 answers
29 answers
26 answers
23 answers
20 answers
20 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4I1L1L1Y4
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Try next

TARSE CRANE SOARE SARED RONTE SLANE

Strategy after playing FILLY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FILLY:

38% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
12% chance
Suggested:
CRANE
10% chance
Suggested:
SOARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

37.7% →
TARSE 6.36 bits
11.6% →
CRANE 5.47 bits
10.1% →
SOARE 5.30 bits
8.6% →
SARED 4.99 bits
4.8% →
RONTE 4.90 bits
2.6% →
SLANE 4.56 bits
1.9% →
SAUTE 4.65 bits
1.8% →
MARSE 4.61 bits
1.6% →
URATE 4.58 bits
1.3% →
PARTE 4.61 bits

Research on FILLY

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

Optimal play

Opening with FILLY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.86 guesses and ranks #12,880 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 FILLY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.85, at or below the proven-optimal 3.86, 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 FIHLEE.

Rhymes with SILLY BILLY CHILE CHILI WILLY

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, FILLY is a kind of female.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
FILLY sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.

In a sentence

Is Cookie a colt or a filly?
© tatoeba.org contributor Miktsoanit (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).