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

FLEER

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /flɪə//flɪɚ//fliɹ/

Noun

One who flees.

Verb

To make a wry face in contempt, or to grin in scorn

Verb

To grin with an air of civility; to leer.

Noun

Mockery; derision.

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

Etymology

Possibly from a Scandinavian source, compare Norwegian bokmål flire (“to giggle”), Jutish Danish flire.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it FLIHR.

Rhymes with CLEAR CHEER SHEER QUEER STEER

Related meanings

Synonyms fugitive runaway

Use FLEER in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 91.2% 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 FLEER performs as a guess

Wordle accepts FLEER 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 78.3% of games, misses completely in 21.7%, and leaves about 209 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,336 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.71 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 FLEER 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.

4.55 Entropy (bits)
209 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.2% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How FLEER 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.

3.71 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#7,336 Rank among openers
Opening with FLEER left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.71 average. It ranks #7,336 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
64
3 guesses
835
4 guesses
1,191
5 guesses
249
6 guesses
14

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ELR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
33%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

FLEER can come back 101 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

517 answers
283 answers
235 answers
186 answers
145 answers
89 answers
87 answers
85 answers
54 answers
44 answers
42 answers
35 answers
34 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
20 answers
20 answers
17 answers
16 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4L1E1E1R1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing FLEER

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FLEER:

22% chance
Suggested:
SAINT
12% chance
Suggested:
COAST
10% chance
Suggested:
SAINT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.7% →
SAINT 6.08 bits
11.9% →
COAST 5.51 bits
9.9% →
SAINT 5.42 bits
7.8% →
SALLY 5.19 bits
6.1% →
COATE 4.55 bits
3.7% →
COAST 3.49 bits
3.6% →
COAST 4.53 bits
3.6% →
STALE 4.53 bits
2.3% →
SAINT 4.18 bits
1.8% →
TRIAL 3.97 bits

Research on FLEER

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

Optimal play

Opening with FLEER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #7,999 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 FLEER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.71, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
FLEER sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

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).