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

FOLEY

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈfoʊli/

Noun

The creation of sound effects, and their addition to film and TV images.

Noun

A foley artist.

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

Etymology

Reduced Anglicized form of Irish Ó Foghladha (“descendant of Foghlaidh”), a byname from foghlaí (“plunderer, pillager, marauder, robber”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it FOHLEE.

Rhymes with LOWLY COLEY ROLLY TOLLY POLEY

In a sentence

They are the foley artists of this production.
© tatoeba.org contributor menaud (CC BY 2.0 FR)
The Foley artist's job is to record sound effects.
© tatoeba.org contributor LimeGreenTeknii (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use FOLEY in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 93.0% 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.

FOLEY in Connections

1 recorded appearance in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.

How FOLEY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts FOLEY 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 85.7% of games, misses completely in 14.3%, and leaves about 167 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,218 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 FOLEY 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.

4.71 Entropy (bits)
167 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How FOLEY 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
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#7,218 Rank among openers
Opening with FOLEY solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.71 average. It ranks #7,218 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
60
3 guesses
837
4 guesses
1,204
5 guesses
240
6 guesses
13

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ELO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
42%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

FOLEY can come back 96 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

362 answers
342 answers
181 answers
156 answers
154 answers
151 answers
116 answers
97 answers
82 answers
55 answers
43 answers
40 answers
35 answers
32 answers
28 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
20 answers
20 answers
20 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4O1L1E1Y4
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing FOLEY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FOLEY:

15% chance
Suggested:
STAIR
14% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
8% chance
Suggested:
ARSON

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.2% →
STAIR 5.43 bits
14.3% →
TRAIN 6.12 bits
7.6% →
ARSON 5.25 bits
6.5% →
STAIR 4.81 bits
6.5% →
SNAIL 5.00 bits
6.3% →
SAINT 4.80 bits
4.9% →
PLATE 4.71 bits
4.1% →
SHART 4.50 bits
3.4% →
SNARE 4.45 bits
2.3% →
ARENE 3.62 bits

Research on FOLEY

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

Optimal play

Opening with FOLEY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,671 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 FOLEY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.71, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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
FOLEY sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 3 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).