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

BELTS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /bɛlts/

Noun

plural of belt

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of belt

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 BELTS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BELTS 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 84.8% of games, misses completely in 15.2%, and leaves about 142 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,156 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 BELTS 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.

4.91 Entropy (bits)
142 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 79% of evaluated openers
1.04 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BELTS 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.

3.62 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#2,156 Rank among openers
Opening with BELTS left 1 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 3.62 average. It ranks #2,156 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
69
3 guesses
935
4 guesses
1,175
5 guesses
163
6 guesses
11
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
1 vowels
Common:
ELST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
85%
Green tile
26%
All gray
15%

Feedback distribution

BELTS can come back 102 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

360 answers
276 answers
159 answers
141 answers
139 answers
119 answers
105 answers
92 answers
90 answers
80 answers
50 answers
48 answers
40 answers
38 answers
37 answers
36 answers
33 answers
26 answers
25 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3E1L1T1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing BELTS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BELTS:

15% chance
Suggested:
CAIRN
12% chance
Suggested:
IRONE
7% chance
Suggested:
CAROL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.2%
CAIRN 6.00 bits
11.6%
IRONE 5.09 bits
6.7%
CAROL 4.91 bits
5.9%
TRAIN 5.36 bits
5.9%
SPANK 4.94 bits
5.0%
PAIRE 4.93 bits
4.4%
AINEE 4.72 bits
3.9%
TREAT 4.65 bits
3.8%
ROAST 4.60 bits
3.4%
RANCE 4.73 bits

Research on BELTS

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

Optimal play

Opening with BELTS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,650 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 #475 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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

One syllable Say it BEHLTS.

Rhymes with MELTS CELTS PELTS FELTS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, BELTS is a kind of loop or accessory.

Synonyms KNOCK bang rap SMASH bash WHACK

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BELTS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 5 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.0 of 5).

In a sentence

Does this car have seat belts?
© tatoeba.org contributor Eccles17 (CC BY 2.0 FR)
We all put on our seat belts.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).