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

YOUNG

Yes, YOUNG was the Wordle answer on December 5, 2023 (Wordle #899).

As an opener, it rules out about 88.0% of possible answers.

Open Solver with YOUNG Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /jʌŋ//jʊŋɡ//jʊŋ/

Adjective

In the early part of growth or life; born not long ago.

“a lamb is a young sheep”

Adjective

At an early stage of existence or development; having recently come into existence.

“the age of space travel is still young”

Noun

Offspring, especially the immature offspring of animals.

“The lion caught a gnu to feed its young.”

Verb

To become or seem to become younger.

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: December 5, 2023 (#899).

See the full page for that puzzle: December 5, 2023 (#899).

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

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How YOUNG performs as a guess

YOUNG 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 69.7% of games, misses completely in 30.3%, and leaves about 285 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,343 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.73 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.

Y__N_ Y in the 1st position and N in the 4th position _O__G O in the 2nd position and G in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe YOUNG 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.

4.21 Entropy (bits)
285 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
88.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 33% of evaluated openers
1.74 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How YOUNG 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.

3.73 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#8,343 Rank among openers
Opening with YOUNG left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.73 average. It ranks #8,343 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
36
3 guesses
833
4 guesses
1,238
5 guesses
224
6 guesses
21
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:
NOU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
70%
Green tile
24%
All gray
30%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S C O L D
B O U G H
Y O U N G

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches YOUNG in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

YOUNG can come back 72 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

720 answers
215 answers
184 answers
139 answers
116 answers
106 answers
84 answers
84 answers
58 answers
57 answers
51 answers
46 answers
39 answers
34 answers
30 answers
29 answers
29 answers
25 answers
22 answers
22 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

Y4O1U1N1G2
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Try next

REAST SATER TALER SILER SCRAE SLIER

Strategy after playing YOUNG

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing YOUNG:

30% chance
Suggested:
REAST
9% chance
Suggested:
SATER
8% chance
Suggested:
TALER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

30.3% →
REAST 6.31 bits
9.1% →
SATER 5.27 bits
7.8% →
TALER 5.22 bits
5.9% →
SILER 5.17 bits
4.9% →
SCRAE 4.80 bits
4.5% →
SLIER 5.13 bits
3.5% →
RAILE 5.26 bits
3.5% →
SLATE 4.84 bits
2.4% →
ARSON 4.55 bits
2.4% →
STALE 4.68 bits

Research on YOUNG

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

Optimal play

Opening with YOUNG, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,450 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with YOUNG can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, at or below the proven-optimal 3.77, 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 YUHNG.

Rhymes with AMONG SWUNG FLUNG STUNG CLUNG

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, YOUNG is a kind of animal or cohort.

Synonyms new YOUTH offspring immature youthful little

Opposites old aged late experienced

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
YOUNG sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 269 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A1); among the first words English learners study.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 5, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 57 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.1 of 5).

In a sentence

I was young at the time.
© tatoeba.org contributor Hybrid (CC BY 2.0 FR)
The man is not young.
© tatoeba.org contributor jeedrek (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).