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

FLUNK

Yes, FLUNK was the Wordle answer on August 29, 2024 (Wordle #1167).

As an opener, it rules out about 85.0% of possible answers.

Open Solver with FLUNK Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /flʌŋk/

Verb

Of a student, to fail a class; to not pass.

“He flunked math, again.”

Verb

Of a teacher, to deny a student a passing grade.

“Unsatisfied with Fred's progress, the teacher flunked him.”

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 29, 2024 (#1167).

See the full page for that puzzle: August 29, 2024 (#1167).

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

Wordle Observatory · optional

Played this Wordle?

Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds

Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.

See the public data

The Observatory retains the selected puzzle, result, rating, optional Hard Mode answer and a random one-puzzle receipt. It stores no answer word, grid, guesses, account, email, IP-derived ID or reusable player identifier.

How verification and withdrawal work

The answer word and timezone are used transiently to verify this page, then discarded. The receipt prevents duplicate submissions and lets this browser withdraw later; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. Read the full privacy details.

How FLUNK performs as a guess

FLUNK 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 66.2% of games, misses completely in 33.8%, and leaves about 357 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,877 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.

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___K F in the 1st position and K in the 5th position F__N_ F in the 1st position and N in the 4th position _L__K L in the 2nd position and K in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe FLUNK 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.

3.90 Entropy (bits)
357 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
85.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 18% of evaluated openers
2.05 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How FLUNK 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.

3.76 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#9,877 Rank among openers
Opening with FLUNK 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 3.76 average. It ranks #9,877 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
49
3 guesses
773
4 guesses
1,244
5 guesses
265
6 guesses
21
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:
LNU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
66%
Green tile
26%
All gray
34%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I M Y
F L A C K
F L U N K

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches FLUNK in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

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

802 answers
296 answers
232 answers
156 answers
90 answers
89 answers
74 answers
47 answers
47 answers
45 answers
45 answers
43 answers
40 answers
40 answers
25 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4L1U1N1K5
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 15 points

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

Try next

TARSE RAILE SANER STORE ORATE SPATE

Strategy after playing FLUNK

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FLUNK:

34% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
12% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
10% chance
Suggested:
SANER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

33.8% →
TARSE 6.43 bits
12.5% →
RAILE 5.35 bits
9.8% →
SANER 5.33 bits
6.6% →
STORE 5.10 bits
3.8% →
ORATE 4.84 bits
3.7% →
SPATE 5.00 bits
3.1% →
SCOTE 4.98 bits
2.0% →
CHASE 4.65 bits
2.0% →
REAST 4.82 bits
1.9% →
PARTE 4.71 bits

Research on FLUNK

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

Optimal play

Opening with FLUNK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,800 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.89 guesses at best and is rank #3,857 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 3.78, 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 FLUHNGK.

Rhymes with DRUNK TRUNK CHUNK SKUNK SPUNK

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, FLUNK is a kind of failure or fail.

Synonyms fail bomb failing

Opposites pass

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
FLUNK 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.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B1); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.8 of 5).

In a sentence

I might flunk the course.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Donald is going to flunk.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).