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

FLAKE

Yes, FLAKE was the Wordle answer on August 2, 2024 (Wordle #1140).

As an opener, it rules out about 92.8% of possible answers.

Open Solver with FLAKE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /fleɪk/

Noun

A loose filmy mass or a thin chiplike layer of anything

“There were a few flakes of paint on the floor from when we were painting the walls.”

Noun

A scale of a fish or similar animal

Verb

To break or chip off in a flake.

“The paint flaked off after only a year.”

Verb

To prove unreliable or impractical; to abandon or desert, to fail to follow through.

“He said he'd come and help, but he flaked.”

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: August 2, 2024 (#1140).

See the full page for that puzzle: August 2, 2024 (#1140).

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

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How FLAKE performs as a guess

FLAKE 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 82.4% of games, misses completely in 17.6%, and leaves about 171 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,322 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.73 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___E F in the 1st position and E in the 5th position F__K_ F in the 1st position and K in the 4th position _L__E L in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe FLAKE 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.

4.73 Entropy (bits)
171 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
92.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 67% of evaluated openers
1.21 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How FLAKE 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.

3.73 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#8,322 Rank among openers
Opening with FLAKE solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.73 average. It ranks #8,322 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
71
3 guesses
771
4 guesses
1,255
5 guesses
239
6 guesses
17
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
2 vowels
Common:
AEL

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
38%
All gray
18%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L U M P
B A D G E
F L A K E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches FLAKE in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

FLAKE can come back 103 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

419 answers
275 answers
236 answers
195 answers
114 answers
89 answers
88 answers
85 answers
77 answers
52 answers
51 answers
44 answers
38 answers
37 answers
32 answers
30 answers
25 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4L1A1K5E1
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Try next

HOIST TENOR RATIO SIREN SILLY SHART

Strategy after playing FLAKE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FLAKE:

18% chance
Suggested:
HOIST
12% chance
Suggested:
TENOR
10% chance
Suggested:
RATIO

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.6% →
HOIST 5.90 bits
11.6% →
TENOR 5.17 bits
9.9% →
RATIO 5.02 bits
8.2% →
SIREN 4.63 bits
4.8% →
SILLY 4.76 bits
3.7% →
SHART 4.77 bits
3.7% →
TAPER 4.33 bits
3.6% →
TALON 4.14 bits
3.2% →
LEVEL 4.02 bits
2.2% →
SHART 3.57 bits

Research on FLAKE

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

Optimal play

Opening with FLAKE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #6,770 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 #2,818 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, 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

One syllable Say it FLAYK.

Rhymes with BREAK SHAKE SNAKE STAKE AWAKE

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, FLAKE is a kind of crystal or actor.

Synonyms bit chip SCRAP peel geek eccentric

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
FLAKE 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.4 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).