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

QUIFF

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

As an opener, it rules out about 70.7% of possible answers.

Open Solver with QUIFF Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kwɪf/[kʰw̥ɪf]

Noun

A hairstyle whereby the forelock is brushed and/or gelled upward, often associated with the styles of the 1950s.

Verb

To arrange (the hair) in such a manner.

Noun

A young girl, especially as promiscuous; a prostitute.

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 QUIFF performs as a guess

Wordle accepts QUIFF 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 49.7% of games, misses completely in 50.3%, and leaves about 696 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #14,840 of 14,855 openers, averaging 4.11 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

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

First-turn measures

All four describe QUIFF 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.

2.61 Entropy (bits)
696 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
70.7% Avg ruled out
In the bottom 1% for first-turn entropy
3.33 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How QUIFF 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.

4.11 Avg guesses
99.66% Solved within six
0.76 Spread of game lengths
#14,840 Rank among openers
Opening with QUIFF left 8 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.76 means those games clustered within about 0.76 of a guess of the 4.11 average. It ranks #14,840 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
18
3 guesses
443
4 guesses
1,207
5 guesses
610
6 guesses
68
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:
IU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
50%
Green tile
20%
All gray
50%

Feedback distribution

QUIFF can come back 36 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

1195 answers
323 answers
221 answers
214 answers
131 answers
77 answers
31 answers
19 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
11 answers
9 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers
4 answers
4 answers
4 answers
3 answers
3 answers
3 answers
2 answers
2 answers
2 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

Q10U1I1F4F4
Total: 20 points

Words With Friends

Total: 21 points

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

Try next

TARSE LATER TORSE SNARE SLYER ORATE

Strategy after playing QUIFF

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing QUIFF:

50% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
14% chance
Suggested:
LATER
9% chance
Suggested:
TORSE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

50.3% →
TARSE 6.17 bits
13.6% →
LATER 5.14 bits
9.3% →
TORSE 5.31 bits
9.0% →
SNARE 4.87 bits
5.5% →
SLYER 4.48 bits
3.2% →
ORATE 5.04 bits
1.3% →
FILER 4.32 bits
0.8% →
ATONE 3.93 bits
0.7% →
CRATE 3.75 bits
0.7% →
CLOTE 3.50 bits

Research on QUIFF

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

Optimal play

Opening with QUIFF, a proven-optimal strategy averages 4.08 guesses and ranks #14,834 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.25 guesses at best and is rank #7,432 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 4.11; proven optimal play reaches 4.08. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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 KWIHF. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, QUIFF is a kind of lock.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
QUIFF 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), 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).