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

SNAFU

Yes, SNAFU was the Wordle answer on April 9, 2023 (Wordle #659).

As an opener, it rules out about 91.8% of possible answers.

Open Solver with SNAFU Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Phrase

Alternative letter-case form of SNAFU.

Noun

Alternative letter-case form of SNAFU.

Verb

To screw up, fuck up, or foul up.

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: April 9, 2023 (#659).

See the full page for that puzzle: April 9, 2023 (#659).

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

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How SNAFU performs as a guess

SNAFU 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 79.9% of games, misses completely in 20.1%, and leaves about 195 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,285 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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.

S___U S in the 1st position and U in the 5th position S__F_ S in the 1st position and F in the 4th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe SNAFU 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.

4.46 Entropy (bits)
195 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
91.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 49% of evaluated openers
1.48 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SNAFU 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.

3.69 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#6,285 Rank among openers
Opening with SNAFU 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 3.69 average. It ranks #6,285 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
44
3 guesses
874
4 guesses
1,213
5 guesses
206
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

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ANSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
29%
All gray
20%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I C K
S W A S H
S N A F U

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SNAFU in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

SNAFU can come back 78 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

478 answers
312 answers
183 answers
168 answers
132 answers
124 answers
96 answers
81 answers
65 answers
59 answers
49 answers
48 answers
47 answers
38 answers
38 answers
35 answers
34 answers
34 answers
32 answers
26 answers
26 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1N1A1F4U1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Try next

TRODE TALER CLOTE GOIER PLIER TRICE

Strategy after playing SNAFU

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SNAFU:

20% chance
Suggested:
TRODE
13% chance
Suggested:
TALER
8% chance
Suggested:
CLOTE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.1% →
TRODE 6.00 bits
13.1% →
TALER 5.54 bits
7.7% →
CLOTE 5.22 bits
7.1% →
GOIER 5.39 bits
5.6% →
PLIER 5.18 bits
5.2% →
TRICE 5.11 bits
4.0% →
GOIER 4.39 bits
3.4% →
TROPE 5.23 bits
2.7% →
FRITE 4.99 bits
2.5% →
THALE 3.83 bits

Research on SNAFU

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

Optimal play

Opening with SNAFU, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #7,829 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.87 guesses at best and is rank #3,395 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it SNAFOO.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SNAFU is a kind of boner or complicate.

Synonyms disorganized

Opposites organized

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SNAFU 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).