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

ANOAS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of anoa

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 ANOAS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ANOAS 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 80.2% of games, misses completely in 19.8%, and leaves about 191 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,844 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.74 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 ANOAS 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.

4.49 Entropy (bits)
191 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 51% of evaluated openers
1.46 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ANOAS 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.

3.74 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#8,844 Rank among openers
Opening with ANOAS left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.74 average. It ranks #8,844 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
50
3 guesses
814
4 guesses
1,216
5 guesses
249
6 guesses
23
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

4/5 unique
3 vowels
Common:
ANOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
26%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

ANOAS can come back 85 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

470 answers
283 answers
194 answers
191 answers
139 answers
131 answers
95 answers
83 answers
71 answers
64 answers
64 answers
44 answers
43 answers
38 answers
37 answers
36 answers
26 answers
25 answers
17 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

A1N1O1A1S1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 6 points

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

Strategy after playing ANOAS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ANOAS:

20% chance
Suggested:
TRIED
12% chance
Suggested:
CARTE
8% chance
Suggested:
SLIER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.8%
TRIED 6.00 bits
11.9%
CARTE 5.45 bits
8.2%
SLIER 5.30 bits
8.0%
ROUET 5.13 bits
5.9%
GRICE 5.13 bits
5.5%
THALE 4.90 bits
4.0%
TRUCE 4.29 bits
3.5%
TRINE 4.45 bits
3.0%
TRIDE 4.23 bits
2.7%
REACT 4.36 bits

Research on ANOAS

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

Optimal play

Opening with ANOAS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,569 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.90 guesses at best and is rank #4,253 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.74, at or below the proven-optimal 3.78, 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

Three syllables, stress on the second syllable Say it UHNOHUHS. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, ANOAS is a kind of buffalo.

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 relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0).