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

GRAIN

Yes, GRAIN was the Wordle answer on December 27, 2024 (Wordle #1287).

As an opener, it rules out about 94.6% of possible answers.

Open Solver with GRAIN Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ɡɹeɪn/

Noun

The harvested seeds of various grass food crops eg: wheat, corn, barley.

“We stored a thousand tons of grain for the winter.”

Noun

Similar seeds from any food crop, e.g., buckwheat, amaranth, quinoa.

Verb

To feed grain to.

Verb

To make granular; to form into grains.

Alternative forms: grane

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: December 27, 2024 (#1287).

See the full page for that puzzle: December 27, 2024 (#1287).

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

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How GRAIN performs as a guess

GRAIN 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 85.8% of games, misses completely in 14.2%, and leaves about 129 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,128 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.60 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.

G___N G in the 1st position and N in the 5th position G__I_ G in the 1st position and I in the 4th position _R__N R in the 2nd position and N in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe GRAIN 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.

5.13 Entropy (bits)
129 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
94.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 89% of evaluated openers
0.81 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GRAIN 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.

3.60 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#1,128 Rank among openers
Opening with GRAIN left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.60 average. It ranks #1,128 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
76
3 guesses
1,004
4 guesses
1,067
5 guesses
187
6 guesses
18
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:
AINR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
34%
All gray
14%

Example solver route

R O A T E
C H I L D
B R A I N
G R A I N

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches GRAIN in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

GRAIN can come back 123 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

336 answers
218 answers
208 answers
167 answers
130 answers
117 answers
108 answers
76 answers
58 answers
50 answers
48 answers
48 answers
43 answers
40 answers
34 answers
31 answers
30 answers
29 answers
28 answers
27 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
20 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2R1A1I1N1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Try next

STOLE SORER STILE PALET TOUSE SCOTE

Strategy after playing GRAIN

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GRAIN:

14% chance
Suggested:
STOLE
9% chance
Suggested:
STOLE
9% chance
Suggested:
SORER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.2% →
STOLE 6.01 bits
9.2% →
STOLE 5.24 bits
8.8% →
SORER 5.28 bits
7.0% →
STILE 5.42 bits
5.5% →
STOLE 5.16 bits
4.9% →
PALET 4.78 bits
4.5% →
TOUSE 5.06 bits
3.2% →
SCOTE 4.71 bits
2.4% →
SHITE 4.51 bits
2.1% →
SAYNE 3.87 bits

Research on GRAIN

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

Optimal play

Opening with GRAIN, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,077 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 GRAIN can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, at or below the proven-optimal 3.66, 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 GRAYN.

Rhymes with TRAIN BRAIN PLANE CHAIN SPAIN

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, GRAIN is a kind of particle or food.

Synonyms texture cereal

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
GRAIN sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 15 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: 88 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.6 of 5).

In a sentence

Please cut with the grain.
© tatoeba.org contributor urro (CC BY 2.0 FR)
She ground up the grain.
© 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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).