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

PERCH

Yes, PERCH was the Wordle answer on November 23, 2021 (Wordle #157).

As an opener, it rules out about 92.5% of possible answers.

Open Solver with PERCH Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /pɜːtʃ//pɝt͡ʃ/

Noun

Any of the three species of spiny-finned freshwater fish in the genus Perca.

Noun

Any of the about 200 related species of fish in the taxonomic family Percidae, especially:

Verb

To rest on a perch (especially, of a bird); to roost.

“The macaw perched on Jim's shoulder.”

Verb

To sit upon the edge of something.

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: November 23, 2021 (#157).

See the full page for that puzzle: November 23, 2021 (#157).

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

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How PERCH performs as a guess

PERCH 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 80.7% of games, misses completely in 19.3%, and leaves about 179 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,187 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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 _E__H E in the 2nd position and H in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe PERCH 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.

4.81 Entropy (bits)
179 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
92.5% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 72% of evaluated openers
1.14 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PERCH 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#3,187 Rank among openers
Opening with PERCH left 1 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 3.64 average. It ranks #3,187 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
65
3 guesses
947
4 guesses
1,128
5 guesses
191
6 guesses
21
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:
ER

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
81%
Green tile
29%
All gray
19%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S I L E D
S P E R M
P E R C H

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches PERCH in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

PERCH can come back 109 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

458 answers
302 answers
201 answers
192 answers
92 answers
91 answers
59 answers
56 answers
51 answers
49 answers
47 answers
44 answers
41 answers
37 answers
34 answers
31 answers
30 answers
30 answers
28 answers
23 answers
20 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3E1R1C3H4
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Try next

TALON AISLE DROIT STAIR BLATE SAINT

Strategy after playing PERCH

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PERCH:

19% chance
Suggested:
TALON
13% chance
Suggested:
AISLE
8% chance
Suggested:
DROIT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.3% →
TALON 5.87 bits
12.7% →
AISLE 5.41 bits
8.5% →
DROIT 5.31 bits
8.1% →
STAIR 4.38 bits
3.9% →
BLATE 4.55 bits
3.8% →
SAINT 4.96 bits
2.5% →
SAINT 4.91 bits
2.4% →
SPOIL 4.66 bits
2.1% →
REATE 3.64 bits
2.1% →
SLATE 4.68 bits

Research on PERCH

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

Optimal play

Opening with PERCH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,219 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.80 guesses at best and is rank #1,480 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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 PURCH.

Rhymes with BIRCH LURCH

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, PERCH is a kind of support or unit.

Synonyms LIGHT rest pole rod alight ROOST

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
PERCH sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 2 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.1 of 5).

In a sentence

A perch is a fish.
© tatoeba.org contributor araneo (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Did you see him on his perch?
© tatoeba.org contributor frasersanders (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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).