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

FRESH

Yes, FRESH was the Wordle answer on July 11, 2021 (Wordle #22).

As an opener, it rules out about 93.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /fɹɛʃ/

Adjective

Newly produced or obtained; recent.

“He followed the fresh hoofprints to find the deer.”

Adjective

Not dried, frozen, or spoiled.

“After taking a beating in the boxing ring, the left side of his face looked like fresh meat.”

Adverb

Recently; just recently; most recently.

“We are fresh out of milk.”

Noun

A rush of water, along a river or onto the land; a flood.

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: July 11, 2021 (#22).

See the full page for that puzzle: July 11, 2021 (#22).

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

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How FRESH performs as a guess

FRESH 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 82.6% of games, misses completely in 17.4%, and leaves about 167 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,808 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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 FRESH 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.

4.75 Entropy (bits)
167 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
93.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 69% of evaluated openers
1.19 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How FRESH 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#5,808 Rank among openers
Opening with FRESH left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.68 average. It ranks #5,808 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
54
3 guesses
875
4 guesses
1,198
5 guesses
211
6 guesses
14
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
1 vowels
Common:
ERS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
31%
All gray
17%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S I L E D
C R E S S
F R E S H

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches FRESH in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

FRESH can come back 91 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

412 answers
314 answers
185 answers
165 answers
132 answers
111 answers
79 answers
67 answers
58 answers
57 answers
51 answers
47 answers
41 answers
39 answers
37 answers
35 answers
33 answers
30 answers
29 answers
28 answers
26 answers
20 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4R1E1S1H4
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing FRESH

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FRESH:

17% chance
Suggested:
TALON
13% chance
Suggested:
ANILE
8% chance
Suggested:
REATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.4%
TALON 5.84 bits
13.2%
ANILE 5.43 bits
7.8%
REATE 4.39 bits
7.0%
SLANT 5.19 bits
5.6%
CAROL 5.15 bits
4.7%
TRAIN 4.19 bits
3.3%
PLATE 4.77 bits
2.8%
COATE 3.97 bits
2.4%
CHANT 4.42 bits
2.4%
TOUCH 4.00 bits

Research on FRESH

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

Optimal play

Opening with FRESH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,495 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.86 guesses at best and is rank #3,106 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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 FREHSH.

Rhymes with FLESH PESCH

Related meanings

Synonyms new CLEAN SWEET SMART NOVEL wise

Opposites STALE preserved SALTY old

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
FRESH sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 68 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A2); among the first words English learners study.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 6, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 51 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.

In a sentence

Don't be fresh with me.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Why are you so fresh?
© tatoeba.org contributor AlanF_US (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).