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

FRIES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.8% of possible answers.

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.

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 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 86.4% of games, misses completely in 13.6%, and leaves about 124 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.

All gray? Tap a tile to cycle gray → yellow → green.

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.

5.07 Entropy (bits)
124 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 87% of evaluated openers
0.88 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

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.

3.65 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#4,011 Rank among openers
Opening with FRIES 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 3.65 average. It ranks #4,011 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
78
3 guesses
883
4 guesses
1,183
5 guesses
194
6 guesses
15
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:
EIRS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
37%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

FRIES can come back 112 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

324 answers
233 answers
169 answers
142 answers
129 answers
116 answers
95 answers
93 answers
85 answers
78 answers
61 answers
56 answers
53 answers
48 answers
40 answers
38 answers
38 answers
35 answers
31 answers
26 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4R1I1E1S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

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:

14% chance
Suggested:
COALY
10% chance
Suggested:
DEALT
7% chance
Suggested:
SLANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.6%
COALY 5.67 bits
9.8%
DEALT 5.47 bits
7.1%
SLANT 5.23 bits
6.0%
ANTIC 5.07 bits
5.4%
CAROM 5.15 bits
4.9%
SHALT 4.97 bits
4.0%
OLATE 3.49 bits
3.9%
TEARY 4.58 bits
3.6%
EATEN 4.18 bits
3.3%
CANOE 3.93 bits

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.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it FRYZ.

Rhymes with PRIZE TRIES FLIES ARISE CRIES

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, FRIES is a kind of murphy.

Synonyms CHIPS

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.

In a sentence

Would you like fries with that?
© tatoeba.org contributor mailohilohi (CC BY 2.0 FR)
You want to have some fries?
© tatoeba.org contributor rul (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).