5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess F tier opener

PROOF

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

As an opener, it rules out about 85.1% 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).

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

Wordle Observatory

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About the project

Add an anonymous result and difficulty rating to the public, aggregate research dataset.

We send only this answer word for puzzle verification, the puzzle number, result, difficulty vote, Hard Mode flag, timezone and a random one-puzzle receipt token. The Observatory stores no answer word, grid, guesses, account, email, IP-derived ID or reusable player identifier. The puzzle-specific receipt prevents duplicate submissions and permits withdrawal; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. See the privacy details.

How PROOF performs as a guess

PROOF is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,358 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 352 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete v5 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.

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

Try next

SLATE SALET LEANT CADET ALINE TARRE
Words starting with P Words ending with F

First-turn measures

3.86 Entropy (bits)
352 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
85.1% 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 opener: v5 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
100.0% Win rate
0.68 Volatility
#9,957 v5 opener rank
In the complete v5 snapshot, PROOF 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 (3.45 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

69 possible patterns. Top outcomes:

796
309
179
139
106
88
87
82
72
47
38
34
30
28
26
22
19
18
17
16
15
14
11
11
10
10
9
8
8
7

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
7.6% →
LEANT 4.88 bits
5.9% →
CADET 4.99 bits
4.5% →
SLATE 5.36 bits
3.7% →
ALINE 5.26 bits
3.7% →
TARRE 4.28 bits
3.5% →
SLANT 4.96 bits
3.1% →
SLANE 5.01 bits
2.0% →
ANILE 4.31 bits

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.