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

VACAY

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

As an opener, it rules out about 83.3% of possible answers.

Open Solver with VACAY Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈveɪkeɪ/

Noun

A vacation.

Verb

To vacation (to spend or take a vacation).

Alternative forms: vaca, vaycay, vay-cay

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 VACAY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts VACAY 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 64.3% of games, misses completely in 35.7%, and leaves about 396 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,766 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.88 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.

V___Y V in the 1st position and Y in the 5th position V__A_ V in the 1st position and A in the 4th position _A__Y A in the 2nd position and Y in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe VACAY 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.

3.61 Entropy (bits)
396 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
83.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 9% of evaluated openers
2.34 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How VACAY 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.

3.88 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#13,766 Rank among openers
Opening with VACAY left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.88 average. It ranks #13,766 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
36
3 guesses
622
4 guesses
1,300
5 guesses
370
6 guesses
25
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:
A

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
64%
Green tile
34%
All gray
36%

Feedback distribution

VACAY can come back 60 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

847 answers
288 answers
220 answers
216 answers
123 answers
94 answers
81 answers
65 answers
48 answers
35 answers
30 answers
29 answers
27 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
14 answers
14 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
6 answers
5 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

V4A1C3A1Y4
Total: 13 points

Words With Friends

Total: 14 points

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

Try next

TOISE ALERT SIDLE HOISE TORSE SENOR

Strategy after playing VACAY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing VACAY:

36% chance
Suggested:
TOISE
12% chance
Suggested:
ALERT
9% chance
Suggested:
SIDLE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

35.7% →
TOISE 6.07 bits
12.1% →
ALERT 5.38 bits
9.3% →
SIDLE 4.50 bits
9.1% →
HOISE 5.26 bits
5.2% →
TORSE 4.80 bits
4.0% →
SENOR 4.65 bits
3.4% →
SHARE 4.56 bits
2.7% →
SLART 3.45 bits
2.0% →
RIONE 4.58 bits
1.5% →
CONTE 3.88 bits

Research on VACAY

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

Optimal play

Opening with VACAY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.90 guesses and ranks #13,777 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.05 guesses at best and is rank #6,790 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.88, at or below the proven-optimal 3.90, 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 VAYKEE. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, VACAY is a kind of holiday.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
VACAY 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).