5 FiveLetterWords
Accepted guess Not a possible answer F tier opener

FONIO

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

As an opener, it rules out about 85.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with FONIO Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈfəʊnjəʊ/

Noun

Digitaria exilis, a cereal cultivated in western Africa; white fonio

Noun

Digitaria iburua, a cereal cultivated in western Africa, black fonio

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 FONIO performs as a guess

Wordle accepts FONIO 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 65.9% of games, misses completely in 34.1%, and leaves about 351 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete v5 benchmark, it ranks #10,955 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.78 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.

F___O F in the 1st position and O in the 5th position F__I_ F in the 1st position and I in the 4th position _O__O O in the 2nd position and O in the 5th position

Try next

TARSE STILE CRATE LEAST TALER CARET
Words starting with F Words ending with O

First-turn measures

3.91 Entropy (bits)
351 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
85.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 19% of evaluated openers
2.04 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opener: v5 benchmark

How FONIO 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.

3.78 Avg guesses
99.9% Win rate
0.70 Volatility
#10,955 v5 opener rank
In the complete v5 snapshot, FONIO ranks #10,955 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
37
3 guesses
760
4 guesses
1,256
5 guesses
275
6 guesses
24
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.45 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

4/5 unique
3 vowels
Common:
INO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
66%
Green tile
29%
All gray
34%

Feedback distribution

70 possible patterns. Top outcomes:

805
268
171
154
152
82
82
67
56
47
31
29
29
29
27
27
23
22
22
16
13
13
13
10
10
9
9
8
8
6

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FONIO:

34% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
11% chance
Suggested:
STILE
7% chance
Suggested:
CRATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

34.1% →
TARSE 6.31 bits
11.4% →
STILE 5.38 bits
7.3% →
CRATE 5.35 bits
6.5% →
LEAST 5.38 bits
6.4% →
TALER 4.69 bits
3.5% →
CARET 4.97 bits
3.5% →
TARGE 4.64 bits
2.8% →
GLARE 4.52 bits
2.4% →
CARLE 4.50 bits
2.0% →
LEARE 4.70 bits

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4O1N1I1O1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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