5 FiveLetterWords
Accepted guess Not a possible answer B tier for first-turn info

PATED

PATED is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.

As an opener, it rules out about 95.0% of possible answers.

Open Solver with PATED Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Adjective

Having a pate or a particular type of pate (head)

“long-pated”

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

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

Past Wordle answer

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

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

How PATED performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PATED as a guess, but the solver does not list it as a possible answer.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 86.6% of games, misses completely in 13.4%, and leaves about 119 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,384 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.61 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___D P in the 1st position and D in the 5th position P__E_ P in the 1st position and E in the 4th position _A__D A in the 2nd position and D in the 5th position PA_ED P in the 1st position, A in the 2nd position, E in the 4th position, and D in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe PATED 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.

5.17 Entropy (bits)
119 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 91% of evaluated openers
0.78 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PATED 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.

3.61 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#1,384 Rank among openers
Opening with PATED left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.61 average. It ranks #1,384 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
86
3 guesses
934
4 guesses
1,160
5 guesses
163
6 guesses
10
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:
AET

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
87%
Green tile
35%
All gray
13%

Feedback distribution

PATED can come back 118 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

319 answers
215 answers
185 answers
165 answers
117 answers
116 answers
97 answers
79 answers
69 answers
57 answers
53 answers
52 answers
47 answers
40 answers
37 answers
34 answers
34 answers
34 answers
31 answers
27 answers
26 answers
26 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3A1T1E1D2
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

SOILY SNORE SNARL SHORT SENOR BLARE

Strategy after playing PATED

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PATED:

13% chance
Suggested:
SOILY
9% chance
Suggested:
SNORE
8% chance
Suggested:
SNARL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.4% →
SOILY 5.66 bits
9.1% →
SNORE 5.22 bits
7.8% →
SNARL 5.16 bits
7.0% →
SHORT 5.44 bits
4.9% →
SENOR 4.37 bits
4.9% →
BLARE 4.67 bits
4.1% →
SONLY 4.64 bits
3.3% →
SHIRE 4.77 bits
2.9% →
SLART 4.72 bits
2.4% →
URINE 4.40 bits

Research on PATED

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

Optimal play

Opening with PATED, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.61 guesses and ranks #258 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 PATED can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.61, at or below the proven-optimal 3.61, 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 PAYTUHD. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, PATED is a kind of sound or touch.

Synonyms tap CHUCK rap SLICK dab appropriate

Opposites inappropriate

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
PATED sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with touch (4.0 of 5).

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).