JUDGE
Yes, JUDGE was the Wordle answer on December 26, 2022 (Wordle #555).
As an opener, it rules out about 85.8% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /d͡ʒʌd͡ʒ/
- Noun
-
A public official whose duty it is to administer the law, especially by presiding over trials and rendering judgments; a justice.
- Noun
-
A person who decides the fate of someone or something that has been called into question.
- Verb
-
To sit in judgment on; to pass sentence on (a person or matter).
“A higher power will judge you after you are dead.”
- Verb
-
To sit in judgment, to act as judge.
“Justices in this country judge without appeal.”
Alternative forms: judg, iudge
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 26, 2022 (#555).
See the full page for that puzzle: December 26, 2022 (#555).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How JUDGE performs as a guess
JUDGE 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 70.5% of games, misses completely in 29.5%, and leaves about 337 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,111 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.85 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 JUDGE 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 JUDGE 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 JUDGE in 5 guesses. See the trap-family guide for similar endgames.
Feedback distribution
JUDGE can come back 67 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 JUDGE; 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 JUDGE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to JUDGE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing JUDGE:
Research on JUDGE
Game-tree analysis and word research for JUDGE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with JUDGE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.85 guesses and ranks #12,644 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 JUDGE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.85, at or below the proven-optimal 3.85, 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, JUDGE is a kind of official or authority.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- JUDGE sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 89 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 8, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 66 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
In a sentence
You be the judge of that.
Who are you to judge?
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).