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

BESTS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.4% of possible answers.

Open Solver with BESTS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /bɛsts/

Noun

plural of best

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of best

Interjection

A polite, formulaic end to a letter or email.

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 BESTS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BESTS 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 76.5% of games, misses completely in 23.5%, and leaves about 253 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,979 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.78 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.

B___S B in the 1st position and S in the 5th position B__T_ B in the 1st position and T in the 4th position _E__S E in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe BESTS 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.

4.10 Entropy (bits)
253 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 28% of evaluated openers
1.85 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BESTS 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.

3.78 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#10,979 Rank among openers
Opening with BESTS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.78 average. It ranks #10,979 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
45
3 guesses
719
4 guesses
1,308
5 guesses
263
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

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
EST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
25%
All gray
24%

Feedback distribution

BESTS can come back 72 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

559 answers
390 answers
185 answers
167 answers
133 answers
127 answers
119 answers
97 answers
61 answers
53 answers
42 answers
41 answers
32 answers
30 answers
27 answers
25 answers
21 answers
19 answers
15 answers
15 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3E1S1T1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Try next

CAROL RAILE TAINT SNARL PAIRE CARLE

Strategy after playing BESTS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BESTS:

24% chance
Suggested:
CAROL
16% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
8% chance
Suggested:
TAINT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

23.5% →
CAROL 5.93 bits
16.4% →
RAILE 5.29 bits
7.8% →
TAINT 5.25 bits
7.0% →
SNARL 4.91 bits
5.6% →
PAIRE 4.82 bits
5.3% →
CARLE 4.63 bits
5.0% →
TALER 4.69 bits
4.1% →
ROAST 4.48 bits
2.6% →
ROANY 4.82 bits
2.2% →
RAINY 4.48 bits

Research on BESTS

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

Optimal play

Opening with BESTS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.82 guesses and ranks #11,435 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with BESTS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.78, at or below the proven-optimal 3.82, 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 BEHSTS. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, BESTS is a kind of try or actor.

Synonyms better TRUMP SCOOP topper FIRST champion

Opposites WORST

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BESTS sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.

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