FLUTE

Meaning

A woodwind instrument consisting of a tube with a row of holes that produce sound through vibrations caused by air blown across the edge of the holes, often tuned by plugging one or more holes with a finger; the Western concert flute, a transverse side-blown flute of European origin.

• verbTo play on a flute.

FLUTE as a word-puzzle answer

FLUTE is a 5-letter word with 2 vowels (U, E) and 3 consonants (F, L, T). Every letter is distinct, so it rarely punishes a clean opening guess.

It leans on high-frequency letters (T, E), so a strong vowel-and-common-consonant opener tends to light up quickly. There are no rare letters here, so it is a fair, mid-difficulty answer for the daily Classic puzzle.

FLUTE by the numbers

Across the 1,734 curated answers in the Wordocious bank, E appears in 50% of answers (the 1st most common letter), T appears in 30% of answers (the 4th most common letter), L appears in 26% of answers (the 8th most common letter). 28 other answers share the opening “FL-”, so two green tiles up front still leave real guessing to do.

Difficulty: 1/5 — very approachable, because its letters are common and no close neighbors compete with it.

Near misses

One letter away in the answer bank: FLUKE. Each of these turns four tiles green against FLUTE — the classic endgame squeeze where spending a guess on the differing letter beats burning attempts on hope.

Put it to use

Words like FLUTE are exactly what the daily puzzles throw at you. Warm up in Practice, race the clock in the Daily Challenge, or study the best starting words before your next run. New to the multi-board modes? The mode guides cover all nine.