5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess C tier for first-turn info

FREAK

Yes, FREAK was the Wordle answer on January 26, 2026 (Wordle #1682).

As an opener, it rules out about 92.8% of possible answers.

Open Solver with FREAK Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /fɹiːk/

Noun

Someone or something that is markedly unusual or unpredictable.

“The two-headed calf was a freak.”

Noun

A person who is extremely abnormal in appearance, social behavior, sexual orientation, gender identity, or business practices; an oddball, a unique person, originally in a displeasing or alienating way.

Verb

To react extremely or irrationally, usually under distress or discomposure.

Verb

To be placed or place someone under the influence of a psychedelic drug, (especially) to experience reality withdrawal, or hallucinations (nightmarish), to behave irrational or unconventional due to drug use.

Alternative forms: freake, freik, freke, frick

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: January 26, 2026 (#1682).

See the full page for that puzzle: January 26, 2026 (#1682).

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

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How FREAK performs as a guess

FREAK 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 83.6% of games, misses completely in 16.4%, and leaves about 171 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,386 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.73 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

F___K F in the 1st position and K in the 5th position F__A_ F in the 1st position and A in the 4th position _R__K R in the 2nd position and K in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in FREAK.

First-turn measures

All four describe FREAK 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.

4.68 Entropy (bits)
171 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
92.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 64% of evaluated openers
1.27 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How FREAK 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.

3.73 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.74 Spread of game lengths
#8,386 Rank among openers
Opening with FREAK left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.74 means those games clustered within about 0.74 of a guess of the 3.73 average. It ranks #8,386 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
70
3 guesses
812
4 guesses
1,171
5 guesses
283
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

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AER

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
29%
All gray
16%

Example solver route

R O A T E
G L E A M
W R A C K
B R E A K
F R E A K

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches FREAK in 5 guesses. See the trap-family guide for similar endgames.

Feedback distribution

FREAK can come back 98 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

390 answers
285 answers
254 answers
176 answers
163 answers
114 answers
89 answers
69 answers
68 answers
67 answers
50 answers
48 answers
41 answers
36 answers
31 answers
27 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4R1E1A1K5
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Try next

SOILY TOILE SATIN SOREE SLATE TORUS

Strategy after playing FREAK

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FREAK:

16% chance
Suggested:
SOILY
12% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
11% chance
Suggested:
SATIN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.4% →
SOILY 5.66 bits
12.0% →
TOILE 5.44 bits
10.7% →
SATIN 5.27 bits
7.4% →
SOREE 4.50 bits
6.9% →
SLATE 4.92 bits
4.8% →
TORUS 5.08 bits
3.7% →
RATIO 4.23 bits
2.9% →
SLEET 4.79 bits
2.9% →
PALET 3.83 bits
2.8% →
PRINT 3.95 bits

Research on FREAK

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

Optimal play

Opening with FREAK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,224 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 FREAK can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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 FREEK.

Rhymes with SPEAK GREEK CREEK SNEAK CHEEK

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, FREAK is a kind of sport or partisan.

Synonyms monster nut addict junkie

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
FREAK sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 12 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 7, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 41 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.

In a sentence

You look like a freak.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I don't want to be a freak.
© 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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0).