FRIES
FRIES is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /fɹaɪz/
- Noun
-
plural of fry
- Noun
-
Ellipsis of french fries.
- Verb
-
third-person singular simple present indicative of fry
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
The town was named after a prominent cotton-mill owner, Francis Henry Fries. The surname is converged from both Friesland and French friche (“fallow land”), found in Swiss French.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it FRYZ.
Rhymes with PRIZE TRIES FLIES ARISE CRIES
Related meanings
Synonyms CHIPS
In a sentence
Would you like fries with that?
You want to have some fries?
Use FRIES in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 94.8% of possible answers.
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
NoThe solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.
Past Wordle answer
No completed appearanceNo appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How FRIES performs as a guess
Wordle accepts FRIES 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 86.3% of games, misses completely in 13.7%, and leaves about 125 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,011 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe FRIES 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 FRIES 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
Feedback distribution
FRIES can come back 112 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 FRIES; 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 FRIES
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to FRIES.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing FRIES:
Research on FRIES
Game-tree analysis and word research for FRIES, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with FRIES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,675 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 FRIES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.65, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- FRIES sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 6 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
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).