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

PROOF

Yes, PROOF was the Wordle answer on January 2, 2026 (Wordle #1658).

As an opener, it rules out about 85.0% of possible answers.

Open Solver with PROOF Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /pɹuːf//pɹuf//pɹʉːf/

Noun

An effort, process, or operation designed to establish or discover a fact or truth; an act of testing; a test; a trial.

“I need proof of your unconditional love. Lend me some dough.”

Noun

The degree of evidence which convinces the mind of any truth or fact, and produces belief; a test by facts or arguments which induce, or tend to induce, certainty of the judgment; conclusive evidence; demonstration.

Adjective

Used in proving or testing.

“a proof load; a proof charge”

Adjective

Firm or successful in resisting.

“proof against harm”

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: January 2, 2026 (#1658).

See the full page for that puzzle: January 2, 2026 (#1658).

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

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How PROOF performs as a guess

PROOF 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 66.2% of games, misses completely in 33.8%, and leaves about 355 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,957 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.76 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___F P in the 1st position and F in the 5th position P__O_ P in the 1st position and O in the 4th position _R__F R in the 2nd position and F in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe PROOF 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.

3.86 Entropy (bits)
355 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
85.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 17% of evaluated openers
2.09 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PROOF 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.

3.76 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#9,957 Rank among openers
Opening with PROOF left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.76 average. It ranks #9,957 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
37
3 guesses
765
4 guesses
1,286
5 guesses
249
6 guesses
15
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
OR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
66%
Green tile
29%
All gray
34%

Example solver route

R O A T E
G R I N D
P L U C K
P R O O F

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches PROOF in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

PROOF can come back 69 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

803 answers
312 answers
179 answers
139 answers
107 answers
89 answers
87 answers
84 answers
72 answers
47 answers
38 answers
34 answers
30 answers
28 answers
26 answers
22 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3R1O1O1F4
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Try next

SLATE SALET LEANT CADET LIANE TARRE

Strategy after playing PROOF

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PROOF:

34% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
13% chance
Suggested:
SALET
8% chance
Suggested:
LEANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

33.8% →
SLATE 6.27 bits
13.1% →
SALET 5.38 bits
7.5% →
LEANT 4.88 bits
5.9% →
CADET 4.99 bits
4.5% →
SLATE 5.39 bits
3.7% →
LIANE 5.25 bits
3.7% →
TARRE 4.28 bits
3.5% →
SLANT 4.95 bits
3.0% →
SLANE 5.01 bits
2.0% →
ANILE 4.31 bits

Research on PROOF

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

Optimal play

Opening with PROOF, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.81 guesses and ranks #11,273 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.94 guesses at best and is rank #5,081 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.76, at or below the proven-optimal 3.81, 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 PROOF.

Rhymes with SPOOF ALOOF

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, PROOF is a kind of evidence or statement.

Synonyms validation

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
PROOF sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 50 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 B1); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 8, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 36 of 100. Raters found it difficult to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.9 of 5).

In a sentence

I have no proof of that.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
You have no proof of that.
© tatoeba.org contributor CM (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).