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

FLUES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.9% of possible answers.

Open Solver with FLUES Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /fluːz/

Noun

plural of flue

Noun

Bits of down.

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 FLUES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts FLUES 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 82.0% of games, misses completely in 18.0%, and leaves about 170 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,163 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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___S F in the 1st position and S in the 5th position F__E_ F in the 1st position and E in the 4th position _L__S L in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe FLUES 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.

4.74 Entropy (bits)
170 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 68% of evaluated openers
1.21 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How FLUES 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.

3.69 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#6,163 Rank among openers
Opening with FLUES left 2 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 3.69 average. It ranks #6,163 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
66
3 guesses
852
4 guesses
1,197
5 guesses
223
6 guesses
14
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:
ELSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
32%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

FLUES can come back 99 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

428 answers
298 answers
179 answers
151 answers
135 answers
130 answers
96 answers
88 answers
55 answers
51 answers
49 answers
46 answers
42 answers
40 answers
38 answers
35 answers
34 answers
31 answers
27 answers
22 answers
21 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4L1U1E1S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Try next

TRAIN TRADE ROAST OATER LOYAL STAIR

Strategy after playing FLUES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FLUES:

18% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
13% chance
Suggested:
TRADE
8% chance
Suggested:
ROAST

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.0% →
TRAIN 6.03 bits
12.6% →
TRADE 5.52 bits
7.5% →
ROAST 5.34 bits
6.4% →
OATER 4.24 bits
5.7% →
LOYAL 5.12 bits
5.5% →
STAIR 4.74 bits
4.0% →
BURNT 4.43 bits
3.7% →
LADLE 4.40 bits
2.3% →
LEANT 3.55 bits
2.1% →
CLANG 4.14 bits

Research on FLUES

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

Optimal play

Opening with FLUES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,047 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 FLUES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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 FLOOZ. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, FLUES is a kind of projection or pipe.

Synonyms FLUKE

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
FLUES 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), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).