CORKY

Meaning

Of wine, contaminated by a faulty or tainted cork.

“This wine smells a bit corky; get me another bottle.”

CORKY as a word-puzzle answer

CORKY is a 5-letter word with 1 vowel (O) and 4 consonants (C, R, K, Y). Every letter is distinct, so it rarely punishes a clean opening guess.

It leans on high-frequency letters (O, R), so a strong vowel-and-common-consonant opener tends to light up quickly. Watch for the less-common letter K — saving a guess to test it once the vowels are placed is usually the fastest route.

CORKY by the numbers

Across the 1,734 curated answers in the Wordocious bank, R appears in 37% of answers (the 3rd most common letter), O appears in 30% of answers (the 5th most common letter), C appears in 19% of answers (the 10th most common letter). 22 other answers share the opening “CO-”, so two green tiles up front still leave real guessing to do.

Difficulty: 3/5 — moderate, because it uses at least one genuinely rare letter.

Near misses

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

Put it to use

Words like CORKY 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.