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

FLEYS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of fley

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 FLEYS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts FLEYS 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 82.3% of games, misses completely in 17.7%, and leaves about 200 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,769 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.74 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.

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

First-turn measures

All four describe FLEYS 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.

4.40 Entropy (bits)
200 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 45% of evaluated openers
1.54 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How FLEYS 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.

3.74 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#8,769 Rank among openers
Opening with FLEYS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.74 average. It ranks #8,769 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
54
3 guesses
784
4 guesses
1,263
5 guesses
235
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
1 vowels
Common:
ELS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
20%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

FLEYS can come back 83 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

421 answers
397 answers
179 answers
154 answers
152 answers
134 answers
116 answers
65 answers
64 answers
63 answers
61 answers
55 answers
42 answers
41 answers
38 answers
24 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4L1E1Y4S1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing FLEYS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FLEYS:

18% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
17% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
8% chance
Suggested:
STAIR

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.7%
TRAIN 6.22 bits
16.7%
ROATE 5.33 bits
7.5%
STAIR 5.33 bits
6.5%
STAIR 4.78 bits
6.4%
DAIRY 4.58 bits
5.6%
LAREE 4.54 bits
4.9%
TRIAL 5.05 bits
2.7%
TRACE 4.81 bits
2.7%
SAUNT 4.31 bits
2.7%
BLANK 4.20 bits

Research on FLEYS

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

Optimal play

Opening with FLEYS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,538 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.90 guesses at best and is rank #4,081 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.74, at or below the proven-optimal 3.78, 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 FLAYZ. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.