Accepted guess Not a possible answer C tier for first-turn info

FITCH

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

As an opener, it rules out about 87.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A polecat, such as the European polecat (Mustela putorius), the striped polecat, steppe polecat, or black-footed polecat of America.

Noun

A skin of a polecat.

Verb

To use this kind of open weave.

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 FITCH performs as a guess

Wordle accepts FITCH 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 69.0% of games, misses completely in 31.0%, and leaves about 303 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,570 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe FITCH 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.

4.21 Entropy (bits)
303 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 33% of evaluated openers
1.74 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How FITCH 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#5,570 Rank among openers
Opening with FITCH solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.68 average. It ranks #5,570 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
48
3 guesses
913
4 guesses
1,152
5 guesses
229
6 guesses
12
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

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
IT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
69%
Green tile
25%
All gray
31%

Feedback distribution

FITCH can come back 88 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

737 answers
262 answers
205 answers
148 answers
102 answers
98 answers
80 answers
59 answers
55 answers
39 answers
35 answers
34 answers
32 answers
31 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
23 answers
23 answers
19 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4I1T1C3H4
Total: 13 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing FITCH

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FITCH:

31% chance
Suggested:
SOARE
11% chance
Suggested:
SOARE
9% chance
Suggested:
SLANE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

31.0%
SOARE 6.05 bits
11.0%
SOARE 5.78 bits
8.6%
SLANE 5.55 bits
6.2%
CARLE 5.70 bits
4.3%
SOLDE 4.60 bits
4.1%
SOARE 5.42 bits
3.4%
SNARE 4.83 bits
2.5%
ALURE 4.91 bits
2.3%
LEARY 4.66 bits
1.6%
CANER 4.23 bits

Research on FITCH

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

Optimal play

Opening with FITCH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.74 guesses and ranks #7,283 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 FITCH can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.74, 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

One syllable Say it FIHCH.

Rhymes with WHICH BITCH PITCH WITCH MITCH

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
FITCH sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 2 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).