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

PLEAT

Yes, PLEAT was the Wordle answer on February 4, 2022 (Wordle #230).

As an opener, it rules out about 95.4% of possible answers.

Open Solver with PLEAT Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /pliːt/

Noun

A fold in the fabric of a garment, usually a skirt, as a part of the design of the garment, with the purpose of adding controlled fullness and freedom of movement, or taking up excess fabric. There are many types of pleats, differing in their construction and appearance.

Noun

A similar fold in a filter, lampshade, or various other products.

Verb

To form one or more pleats in a piece of fabric or a garment.

Verb

To plait.

“pleat my hair”

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: February 4, 2022 (#230).

See the full page for that puzzle: February 4, 2022 (#230).

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

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How PLEAT performs as a guess

PLEAT 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 89.0% of games, misses completely in 11.0%, and leaves about 110 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #688 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___T P in the 1st position and T in the 5th position P__A_ P in the 1st position and A in the 4th position _L__T L in the 2nd position and T in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe PLEAT 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.

5.36 Entropy (bits)
110 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
95.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 96% of evaluated openers
0.59 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PLEAT 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
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#688 Rank among openers
Opening with PLEAT 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 3.59 average. It ranks #688 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
101
3 guesses
957
4 guesses
1,110
5 guesses
170
6 guesses
14
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:
AELT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
89%
Green tile
33%
All gray
11%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S P L A T
P L E A T

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches PLEAT in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

PLEAT can come back 133 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

272 answers
262 answers
193 answers
121 answers
107 answers
97 answers
77 answers
71 answers
70 answers
60 answers
53 answers
47 answers
46 answers
45 answers
45 answers
42 answers
40 answers
34 answers
31 answers
31 answers
29 answers
28 answers
28 answers
27 answers
25 answers
25 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3L1E1A1T1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

DOREE CRONY CAIRN SNARE NORTH SILLY

Strategy after playing PLEAT

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PLEAT:

11% chance
Suggested:
DOREE
11% chance
Suggested:
CRONY
8% chance
Suggested:
CAIRN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

11.5% →
DOREE 5.32 bits
11.0% →
CRONY 5.64 bits
8.1% →
CAIRN 5.23 bits
5.1% →
SNARE 4.54 bits
4.5% →
NORTH 5.05 bits
4.1% →
SILLY 4.79 bits
3.2% →
NOIRE 4.62 bits
3.0% →
BOREE 4.32 bits
2.9% →
ROUSE 4.72 bits
2.5% →
RAINY 4.14 bits

Research on PLEAT

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

Optimal play

Opening with PLEAT, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.61 guesses and ranks #402 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.72 guesses at best and is rank #62 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, 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

One syllable Say it PLEET.

Rhymes with SWEET TREAT ELITE SHEET FLEET

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, PLEAT is a kind of bend or fold.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
PLEAT sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.

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).