FLAKY
Yes, FLAKY was the Wordle answer on January 29, 2026 (Wordle #1685).
As an opener, it rules out about 87.3% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈfleɪki/
- Adjective
-
Consisting of flakes or of small, loose masses; lying, or cleaving off, in flakes or layers; flakelike.
- Adjective
-
Unreliable; likely to make plans with others but then abandon those plans.
Alternative forms: flakey
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: January 29, 2026 (#1685).
See the full page for that puzzle: January 29, 2026 (#1685).
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 FLAKY performs as a guess
FLAKY 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 69.6% of games, misses completely in 30.4%, and leaves about 302 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,951 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.76 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 FLAKY 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 FLAKY 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 FLAKY in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
FLAKY can come back 82 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 FLAKY; 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 FLAKY
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to FLAKY.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing FLAKY:
Research on FLAKY
Game-tree analysis and word research for FLAKY, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with FLAKY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.79 guesses and ranks #10,084 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.92 guesses at best and is rank #4,777 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.76, at or below the proven-optimal 3.79, 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.
Related meanings
Synonyms bizarre eccentric freaky outlandish tender unconventional
Opposites TOUGH conventional
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- FLAKY sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.5 of 5).
In a sentence
Tom said he thought I was flaky.
Tom said he thought that I was flaky.
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).