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

JOKER

Yes, JOKER was the Wordle answer on April 25, 2023 (Wordle #675).

As an opener, it rules out about 90.6% of possible answers.

Open Solver with JOKER Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈd͡ʒəʊkə//ˈd͡ʒoʊkɚ/

Noun

A person who makes jokes.

Noun

A funny person.

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: April 25, 2023 (#675).

See the full page for that puzzle: April 25, 2023 (#675).

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

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How verification and withdrawal work

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How JOKER performs as a guess

JOKER 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 79.9% of games, misses completely in 20.1%, and leaves about 222 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,446 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.82 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___R J in the 1st position and R in the 5th position J__E_ J in the 1st position and E in the 4th position _O__R O in the 2nd position and R in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe JOKER 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.

4.11 Entropy (bits)
222 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
90.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 28% of evaluated openers
1.84 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How JOKER 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.

3.82 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#12,446 Rank among openers
Opening with JOKER left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.82 average. It ranks #12,446 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
34
3 guesses
704
4 guesses
1,271
5 guesses
324
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:
EOR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
27%
All gray
20%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S M O C K
J O K E R

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches JOKER in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

JOKER can come back 60 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

478 answers
377 answers
198 answers
173 answers
142 answers
138 answers
106 answers
97 answers
84 answers
83 answers
63 answers
43 answers
41 answers
31 answers
31 answers
29 answers
28 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
17 answers
16 answers
13 answers
12 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
6 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

J8O1K5E1R1
Total: 16 points

Words With Friends

Total: 18 points

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

Try next

SAINT SLATE TIARE SLANT SALTY SLACK

Strategy after playing JOKER

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing JOKER:

20% chance
Suggested:
SAINT
16% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
8% chance
Suggested:
SAINT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.1% →
SAINT 6.05 bits
15.9% →
SLATE 5.67 bits
8.3% →
SAINT 5.23 bits
7.3% →
TIARE 4.69 bits
6.0% →
SLANT 5.32 bits
5.8% →
SALTY 4.42 bits
4.5% →
SAINT 3.76 bits
4.1% →
SLANT 4.82 bits
3.5% →
SAINT 4.30 bits
3.5% →
SLACK 5.00 bits

Research on JOKER

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

Optimal play

Opening with JOKER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.83 guesses and ranks #12,021 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 JOKER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.82, at or below the proven-optimal 3.83, 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

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

Rhymes with POKER OCHRE KOKER

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, JOKER is a kind of comic or actor.

Synonyms turkey

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
JOKER sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 5 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.

In a sentence

This guy is a joker.
© tatoeba.org contributor tieguy (CC BY 2.0 FR)
He called me a joker.
© tatoeba.org contributor danieljtah (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).