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

JELLY

Yes, JELLY was the Wordle answer on November 23, 2024 (Wordle #1253).

As an opener, it rules out about 84.0% of possible answers.

Open Solver with JELLY Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈd͡ʒɛli//ˈd͡ʒeli//ˈd͡ʒɛle/

Noun

A dessert made by boiling gelatine (or a plant-based alternative such as agar or carrageenan), sugar and some flavouring (often derived from fruit) and allowing it to set.

“His mother prepared jelly for him and his friends for dessert.”

Noun

A clear or translucent fruit preserve, made from fruit juice and set using either naturally occurring, or added, pectin.

Verb

To make into jelly.

Verb

To preserve in jelly.

Alternative forms: gelly

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: November 23, 2024 (#1253).

See the full page for that puzzle: November 23, 2024 (#1253).

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

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How JELLY performs as a guess

JELLY 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 72.0% of games, misses completely in 28.0%, and leaves about 380 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #14,560 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.96 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.

J___Y J in the 1st position and Y in the 5th position J__L_ J in the 1st position and L in the 4th position _E__Y E in the 2nd position and Y in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe JELLY 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.

3.45 Entropy (bits)
380 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
84.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 6% of evaluated openers
2.50 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How JELLY 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.

3.96 Avg guesses
99.70% Solved within six
0.75 Spread of game lengths
#14,560 Rank among openers
Opening with JELLY left 7 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.75 means those games clustered within about 0.75 of a guess of the 3.96 average. It ranks #14,560 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
33
3 guesses
554
4 guesses
1,264
5 guesses
450
6 guesses
45
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

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
EL

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
72%
Green tile
31%
All gray
28%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S I L E N
B E L C H
J E L L Y

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches JELLY in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

JELLY can come back 56 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

665 answers
570 answers
216 answers
202 answers
142 answers
134 answers
40 answers
34 answers
34 answers
30 answers
30 answers
28 answers
25 answers
22 answers
21 answers
19 answers
19 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
11 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
5 answers
5 answers
4 answers
4 answers
3 answers
3 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

J8E1L1L1Y4
Total: 15 points

Words With Friends

Total: 18 points

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

Try next

TRAIN ARISE ROAST SONAR STAIR AINEE

Strategy after playing JELLY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing JELLY:

28% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
24% chance
Suggested:
ARISE
9% chance
Suggested:
ROAST

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

28.0% →
TRAIN 6.16 bits
24.0% →
ARISE 5.36 bits
9.1% →
ROAST 4.72 bits
8.5% →
SONAR 4.91 bits
6.0% →
STAIR 4.79 bits
5.6% →
AINEE 4.46 bits
1.7% →
SAINT 4.15 bits
1.4% →
TRADE 3.94 bits
1.4% →
PRATE 3.88 bits
1.3% →
COAST 4.26 bits

Research on JELLY

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

Optimal play

Opening with JELLY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.95 guesses and ranks #14,433 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 JELLY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.96; proven optimal play reaches 3.95. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it JEHLEE.

Rhymes with KELLY BELLY TELLY NELLY BELLI

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, JELLY is a kind of treat or preserve.

Synonyms gelatin

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
JELLY 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.
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 4, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 94 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.

In a sentence

Did you make this jelly?
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
What kind of jelly is this?
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (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).