GRASS
Yes, GRASS was the Wordle answer on December 17, 2025 (Wordle #1642).
As an opener, it rules out about 91.1% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ɡɹɑːs/[ɡɹ̠ɑːs][ɡɹ̠äːs]
- Noun
-
Any plant of the family Poaceae, characterized by leaves that arise from nodes in the stem and leaf bases that wrap around the stem, especially those grown as ground cover rather than for grain.
- Noun
-
Any of the various plants that are not in the family Poaceae that resemble grasses.
- Verb
-
To lay out on the grass; to knock down (an opponent etc.).
- Verb
-
To act as a grass or informer, to betray; to report on (criminals etc) to the authorities.
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: December 17, 2025 (#1642).
See the full page for that puzzle: December 17, 2025 (#1642).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
Wordle Observatory · optional
Played this Wordle?
Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds
Wordle Observatory · optional
Played this Wordle?
Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds
Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.
See the public dataThank you. Your result now helps describe this puzzle.
See what the public sample says →How GRASS performs as a guess
GRASS 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 78.5% of games, misses completely in 21.5%, and leaves about 211 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,303 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.77 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 GRASS 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 GRASS 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
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches GRASS in 5 guesses. See the trap-family guide for similar endgames.
Feedback distribution
GRASS can come back 71 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 GRASS; 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 GRASS
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to GRASS.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing GRASS:
Research on GRASS
Game-tree analysis and word research for GRASS, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with GRASS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.79 guesses and ranks #10,404 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 GRASS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.77, at or below the proven-optimal 3.79, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, GRASS is a kind of herb or rat.
Synonyms shit shop SMOKE pot weed rat
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- GRASS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 24 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 A1); among the first words English learners study.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 4, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 96 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.4 of 5).
In a sentence
Don't step on the grass!
Don't walk on the grass.
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).