FRAIL
Yes, FRAIL was the Wordle answer on November 18, 2024 (Wordle #1248).
As an opener, it rules out about 94.6% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /fɹeɪl/
- Adjective
-
Easily broken physically; not firm or durable; liable to fail and perish.
- Adjective
-
Weak; infirm.
- Verb
-
To play a stringed instrument, usually a banjo, by picking with the back of a fingernail.
- Noun
-
A basket made of rushes, used chiefly to hold figs and raisins.
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: November 18, 2024 (#1248).
See the full page for that puzzle: November 18, 2024 (#1248).
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
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 dataThank you. Your result now helps describe this puzzle.
See what the public sample says →How FRAIL performs as a guess
FRAIL 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 86.3% of games, misses completely in 13.7%, and leaves about 128 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,020 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe FRAIL 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How FRAIL 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches FRAIL in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
FRAIL can come back 114 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for FRAIL; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing FRAIL
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to FRAIL.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing FRAIL:
Research on FRAIL
Game-tree analysis and word research for FRAIL, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with FRAIL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #4,078 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 FRAIL can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.69, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, FRAIL is a kind of weight or basket.
Synonyms weak delicate fragile imperfect HUMAN feeble
Opposites robust unbreakable
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- FRAIL sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 2 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 9, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 66 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.0 of 5).
In a sentence
The old man is frail.
Tom is old and frail.
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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).