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

FOODS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 82.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /fuːdz//fudz/

Noun

plural of food

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 FOODS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts FOODS 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 64.1% of games, misses completely in 35.9%, and leaves about 411 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,701 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.80 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 FOODS 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.

3.61 Entropy (bits)
411 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
82.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 9% of evaluated openers
2.34 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How FOODS 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.

3.80 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#11,701 Rank among openers
Opening with FOODS left 1 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 3.80 average. It ranks #11,701 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
41
3 guesses
725
4 guesses
1,263
5 guesses
308
6 guesses
16
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
OS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
64%
Green tile
29%
All gray
36%

Feedback distribution

FOODS can come back 66 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

853 answers
394 answers
177 answers
137 answers
125 answers
86 answers
78 answers
56 answers
42 answers
41 answers
39 answers
34 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
17 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4O1O1D2S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing FOODS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FOODS:

36% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
17% chance
Suggested:
STALE
7% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

35.9%
RAILE 6.15 bits
16.6%
STALE 5.62 bits
7.5%
ARIEL 5.66 bits
5.8%
CARTE 4.75 bits
5.3%
MANOR 5.36 bits
3.6%
BRANE 4.75 bits
3.3%
RAILE 5.19 bits
2.4%
CRUET 4.02 bits
1.8%
RAINE 4.27 bits
1.7%
TRICE 4.78 bits

Research on FOODS

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

Optimal play

Opening with FOODS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.84 guesses and ranks #12,161 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 FOODS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.80, at or below the proven-optimal 3.84, 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 FOODZ.

Rhymes with DUDES MOODS FEUDS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, FOODS is a kind of substance or content.

Synonyms nutrient

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
FOODS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 26 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.

In a sentence

What foods don't you like?
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
What other foods do you like?
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (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).