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

ALIST

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

As an opener, it rules out about 95.6% of possible answers.

Open Solver with ALIST Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈeɪ.lɪst/

Noun

An association list.

Alternative forms: a-list

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.

Why this solver ranks ALIST highly

This solver ranks ALIST highly because it separates the possible answers well, even though it is not itself a possible answer.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 86.4% of games, misses completely in 13.6%, and leaves about 104 possible answers on average.

In the current bounded six-turn policy, it ranks #26 of 182 evaluated openers; exact misses rank first, then average guesses among wins.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.52 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.

A___T A in the 1st position and T in the 5th position A__S_ A in the 1st position and S in the 4th position _L__T L in the 2nd position and T in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe ALIST 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.

5.48 Entropy (bits)
104 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 98% of evaluated openers
0.46 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ALIST 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.

3.52 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#3 Rank among openers
Opening with ALIST left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.52 average. It ranks #3 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
79
3 guesses
1,132
4 guesses
1,000
5 guesses
127
6 guesses
14
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:
AILST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
35%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

ALIST can come back 131 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

322 answers
225 answers
110 answers
106 answers
100 answers
97 answers
93 answers
77 answers
65 answers
64 answers
53 answers
50 answers
44 answers
41 answers
40 answers
39 answers
38 answers
34 answers
33 answers
32 answers
31 answers
30 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
20 answers
18 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

A1L1I1S1T1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 6 points

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

Try next

DRONE CARNE DINER CELLO ROUTE PRONE

Strategy after playing ALIST

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ALIST:

14% chance
Suggested:
DRONE
9% chance
Suggested:
CARNE
5% chance
Suggested:
DINER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.6% →
DRONE 5.99 bits
9.5% →
CARNE 5.38 bits
4.6% →
DINER 5.30 bits
4.5% →
CELLO 4.77 bits
4.2% →
ROUTE 5.22 bits
4.1% →
PRONE 5.01 bits
3.9% →
CARLE 4.62 bits
3.2% →
DRONE 4.91 bits
2.7% →
TARTE 4.47 bits
2.7% →
CRAPE 4.55 bits

Research on ALIST

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

Optimal play

Opening with ALIST, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.60 guesses and ranks #120 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.71 guesses at best and is rank #25 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.52, at or below the proven-optimal 3.60, 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 second syllable Say it UHLIHST. Estimated pronunciation

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

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
ALIST sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

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 frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).