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

BIDES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.9% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /baɪdz/

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of bide

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 BIDES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BIDES 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 82.6% of games, misses completely in 17.4%, and leaves about 169 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,520 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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 BIDES 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.

4.70 Entropy (bits)
169 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 65% of evaluated openers
1.25 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BIDES 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.

3.66 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#4,520 Rank among openers
Opening with BIDES 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 3.66 average. It ranks #4,520 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
67
3 guesses
881
4 guesses
1,199
5 guesses
193
6 guesses
13
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:
EIS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
30%
All gray
17%

Feedback distribution

BIDES can come back 97 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

412 answers
282 answers
215 answers
156 answers
156 answers
144 answers
76 answers
74 answers
69 answers
66 answers
55 answers
47 answers
41 answers
34 answers
32 answers
30 answers
28 answers
24 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3I1D2E1S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing BIDES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BIDES:

17% chance
Suggested:
CAROL
12% chance
Suggested:
LEARE
9% chance
Suggested:
SLANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.4%
CAROL 6.01 bits
11.9%
LEARE 5.54 bits
9.1%
SLANT 5.21 bits
6.6%
OATER 4.28 bits
6.6%
CAIRN 5.35 bits
6.1%
SLART 5.01 bits
3.2%
DRAWN 4.84 bits
3.1%
SALTY 3.73 bits
2.9%
CARNE 4.31 bits
2.8%
STINK 4.37 bits

Research on BIDES

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

Optimal play

Opening with BIDES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,757 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 BIDES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, 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 BYDZ. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, BIDES is a kind of act or try.

Synonyms play call stay wish PRESS OFFER

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BIDES 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (1.8 of 5).

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).