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

PATCH

Yes, PATCH was the Wordle answer on April 20, 2025 (Wordle #1401).

As an opener, it rules out about 91.0% of possible answers.

Open Solver with PATCH Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /pæt͡ʃ/

Noun

A piece of cloth, or other suitable material, sewed or otherwise fixed upon a garment to repair or strengthen it, especially upon an old garment to cover a hole.

“His sleeves had patches on the elbows where different fabric had been sewn on to replace material that had worn away.”

Noun

A small piece of anything used to repair damage or a breach; as, a patch on a kettle, a roof, etc.

“I can't afford to replace the roof, which is what it really needs. I'll have the roofer apply a patch.”

Verb

To mend by sewing on a piece or pieces of cloth, leather, or the like.

“My coat needs patching.”

Verb

To mend with pieces; to repair by fastening pieces on.

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 20, 2025 (#1401).

See the full page for that puzzle: April 20, 2025 (#1401).

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

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How PATCH performs as a guess

PATCH 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 75.9% of games, misses completely in 24.1%, and leaves about 213 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #703 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.59 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.

P___H P in the 1st position and H in the 5th position P__C_ P in the 1st position and C in the 4th position _A__H A in the 2nd position and H in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe PATCH 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.

4.66 Entropy (bits)
213 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
91.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 62% of evaluated openers
1.29 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PATCH 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.

3.59 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#703 Rank among openers
Opening with PATCH left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.67 means those games clustered within about 0.67 of a guess of the 3.59 average. It ranks #703 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
63
3 guesses
999
4 guesses
1,134
5 guesses
147
6 guesses
9
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
1 vowels
Common:
AT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
29%
All gray
24%

Example solver route

R O A T E
C L I N T
H U M P H
P A T C H

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches PATCH in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

PATCH can come back 106 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

571 answers
261 answers
199 answers
137 answers
107 answers
105 answers
72 answers
69 answers
61 answers
45 answers
44 answers
41 answers
36 answers
32 answers
31 answers
31 answers
30 answers
29 answers
25 answers
23 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3A1T1C3H4
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Try next

RIONE GLARE SIREN SLYER LEAST CRONE

Strategy after playing PATCH

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PATCH:

24% chance
Suggested:
RIONE
11% chance
Suggested:
GLARE
8% chance
Suggested:
SIREN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

24.1% →
RIONE 6.04 bits
11.0% →
GLARE 5.45 bits
8.4% →
SIREN 5.67 bits
5.8% →
SLYER 4.85 bits
4.5% →
LEAST 4.85 bits
4.4% →
CRONE 5.27 bits
3.0% →
SLIER 5.39 bits
2.9% →
SIREN 5.30 bits
2.6% →
URINE 4.80 bits
1.9% →
SERAL 4.56 bits

Research on PATCH

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

Optimal play

Opening with PATCH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,546 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 PATCH can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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

One syllable Say it PACH.

Rhymes with MATCH CATCH BATCH HATCH LATCH

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, PATCH is a kind of marking or tract.

Synonyms WHILE PIECE spot plot SPELL darn

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
PATCH sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 16 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 7, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 70 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.9 of 5).

In a sentence

He's not a patch on him.
© tatoeba.org contributor sundown (CC BY 2.0 FR)
It's time to patch things up.
© tatoeba.org contributor ddnktr (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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).