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

FONLY

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.9% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈfɒnli/

Adverb

foolishly

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 FONLY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts FONLY 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 74.1% of games, misses completely in 25.9%, and leaves about 238 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,103 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.65 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 FONLY 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)
238 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 45% of evaluated openers
1.55 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How FONLY 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.

3.65 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#4,103 Rank among openers
Opening with FONLY left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.65 average. It ranks #4,103 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
55
3 guesses
907
4 guesses
1,198
5 guesses
181
6 guesses
12
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

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
LNO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
74%
Green tile
37%
All gray
26%

Feedback distribution

FONLY can come back 94 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

612 answers
228 answers
193 answers
185 answers
152 answers
108 answers
75 answers
64 answers
53 answers
51 answers
46 answers
40 answers
37 answers
34 answers
34 answers
31 answers
30 answers
29 answers
23 answers
20 answers
20 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FONLY:

26% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
10% chance
Suggested:
RAISE
8% chance
Suggested:
SATER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.9%
TARSE 6.45 bits
9.7%
RAISE 5.51 bits
8.2%
SATER 5.37 bits
7.8%
TIARE 5.55 bits
6.4%
PARSE 4.94 bits
4.6%
CRUET 4.79 bits
3.2%
SAUTE 4.83 bits
2.7%
ARISE 4.69 bits
2.2%
SAICE 4.58 bits
2.2%
BLASE 4.16 bits

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4O1N1L1Y4
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

The science of FONLY

What game-tree analysis and word research measure about FONLY — each figure with what it means.

Optimal play

Opening with FONLY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses — rank #6,614 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.86 guesses at best — rank #3,149 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.65 — at or below the proven-optimal 3.73 only 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) — not the site's working answer pool.

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable — say it FAHNLEE. 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.