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

FIXES

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈfɪksɪz/

Noun

plural of fix

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of fix

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it FIHKSIHZ.

Rhymes with SIXES NIXES

Related meanings

Synonyms get make set READY doctor location

In a sentence

There are no quick fixes.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I don't expect any quick fixes.
© tatoeba.org contributor CM (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use FIXES in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 89.4% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

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

How FIXES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts FIXES 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 77.8% of games, misses completely in 22.2%, and leaves about 252 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,092 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe FIXES 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.

4.00 Entropy (bits)
252 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How FIXES 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
99.96% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#13,092 Rank among openers
Opening with FIXES left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.85 average. It ranks #13,092 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
49
3 guesses
651
4 guesses
1,284
5 guesses
349
6 guesses
20

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EIS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
27%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

FIXES can come back 66 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

530 answers
374 answers
235 answers
190 answers
186 answers
153 answers
95 answers
88 answers
68 answers
47 answers
45 answers
29 answers
29 answers
27 answers
25 answers
20 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4I1X8E1S1
Total: 15 points

Words With Friends

Total: 15 points

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

Strategy after playing FIXES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FIXES:

22% chance
Suggested:
TALON
16% chance
Suggested:
LEARE
10% chance
Suggested:
SLART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.2% →
TALON 5.75 bits
15.7% →
LEARE 5.49 bits
9.9% →
SLART 5.28 bits
8.0% →
OATER 4.29 bits
7.8% →
CAIRN 5.37 bits
6.4% →
SLART 4.93 bits
4.0% →
DIRTY 3.90 bits
3.7% →
TARGE 4.24 bits
2.9% →
STINK 4.38 bits
2.0% →
STEER 3.99 bits

Research on FIXES

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

Optimal play

Opening with FIXES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.84 guesses and ranks #12,373 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 FIXES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.85; proven optimal play reaches 3.84. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
FIXES 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.7 of 5).

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).