Accepted guess Not a possible answer B tier for first-turn info

ALCOS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of alco

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 ALCOS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ALCOS 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 85.7% of games, misses completely in 14.3%, and leaves about 133 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,225 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.60 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe ALCOS 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.

4.98 Entropy (bits)
133 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 83% of evaluated openers
0.96 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ALCOS 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.

3.60 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#1,225 Rank among openers
Opening with ALCOS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.60 average. It ranks #1,225 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
68
3 guesses
997
4 guesses
1,104
5 guesses
166
6 guesses
18
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:
ALOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
22%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

ALCOS can come back 107 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

339 answers
230 answers
196 answers
172 answers
119 answers
118 answers
102 answers
95 answers
79 answers
72 answers
52 answers
49 answers
47 answers
45 answers
40 answers
34 answers
33 answers
32 answers
32 answers
23 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

A1L1C3O1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing ALCOS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ALCOS:

14% chance
Suggested:
TRINE
10% chance
Suggested:
TRINE
8% chance
Suggested:
RONTE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.3%
TRINE 6.08 bits
9.7%
TRINE 5.42 bits
8.3%
RONTE 5.36 bits
7.2%
STIRE 5.54 bits
5.0%
PRATE 5.05 bits
5.0%
LIBEL 5.06 bits
4.3%
PARTE 4.60 bits
4.0%
CRINE 5.26 bits
3.3%
STORE 4.65 bits
3.0%
CRATE 4.88 bits

Research on ALCOS

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

Optimal play

Opening with ALCOS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,304 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.76 guesses at best and is rank #489 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, at or below the proven-optimal 3.66, 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 ALKOHS. Estimated pronunciation

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

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.