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

JOLLY

Yes, JOLLY was the Wordle answer on April 21, 2024 (Wordle #1037).

As an opener, it rules out about 80.3% of possible answers.

Open Solver with JOLLY Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈd͡ʒɒli//ˈd͡ʒɑli/

Adjective

Full of merriment and high spirits; jovial; joyous; merry.

Adjective

Drunk.

Noun

A pleasure trip or excursion; especially, an expenses-paid or unnecessary one.

Noun

Ellipsis of jolly boat.

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 21, 2024 (#1037).

See the full page for that puzzle: April 21, 2024 (#1037).

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

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How JOLLY performs as a guess

JOLLY 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 60.7% of games, misses completely in 39.3%, and leaves about 469 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #14,521 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 _O__Y O in the 2nd position and Y in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe JOLLY 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.

3.29 Entropy (bits)
469 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
80.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 4% of evaluated openers
2.65 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How JOLLY 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
99.83% Solved within six
0.75 Spread of game lengths
#14,521 Rank among openers
Opening with JOLLY left 4 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 #14,521 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
34
3 guesses
569
4 guesses
1,248
5 guesses
457
6 guesses
41
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:
LO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
61%
Green tile
32%
All gray
39%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S C O L D
F I L T H
G O L L Y
J O L L Y

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches JOLLY in 5 guesses. See the trap-family guide for similar endgames.

Feedback distribution

JOLLY can come back 58 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

933 answers
283 answers
276 answers
208 answers
161 answers
65 answers
60 answers
49 answers
44 answers
29 answers
29 answers
26 answers
23 answers
18 answers
16 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers
4 answers
4 answers
4 answers
4 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

J8O1L1L1Y4
Total: 15 points

Words With Friends

Total: 18 points

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

Try next

TIARE TRONE RAISE DANSE CRUET SCRAE

Strategy after playing JOLLY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing JOLLY:

39% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
12% chance
Suggested:
TRONE
12% chance
Suggested:
RAISE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

39.3% →
TIARE 6.28 bits
11.9% →
TRONE 5.31 bits
11.6% →
RAISE 5.32 bits
8.8% →
DANSE 4.75 bits
6.8% →
CRUET 4.93 bits
2.7% →
SCRAE 3.90 bits
2.5% →
SAUTE 4.74 bits
2.1% →
SWORE 3.49 bits
1.9% →
RAISE 4.54 bits
1.2% →
PATER 4.53 bits

Research on JOLLY

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

Optimal play

Opening with JOLLY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.94 guesses and ranks #14,375 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 JOLLY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.96; proven optimal play reaches 3.94. 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 JAHLEE.

Rhymes with HOLLY MOLLY DOLLY POLLY FOLLY

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, JOLLY is a kind of party or boat.

Synonyms pretty kid gay somewhat fairly josh

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
JOLLY sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 4 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 6, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 61 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.

In a sentence

We had a jolly good time.
© tatoeba.org contributor Hybrid (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Tom is a jolly old man.
© tatoeba.org contributor shekitten (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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0).