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

BILLS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /bɪlz/

Noun

plural of bill

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of bill

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it BIHLZ.

Rhymes with HILLS KILLS MILLS PILLS FILLS

Related meanings

Synonyms account card note charge notice measure

In a sentence

I have bills to pay.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I never pay the bills.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use BILLS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 86.4% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

BILLS in Connections

1 recorded appearance in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.

How BILLS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BILLS 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 69.5% of games, misses completely in 30.5%, and leaves about 324 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,064 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 BILLS 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.

3.94 Entropy (bits)
324 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
86.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BILLS 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
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#9,064 Rank among openers
Opening with BILLS left 2 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 3.74 average. It ranks #9,064 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
43
3 guesses
804
4 guesses
1,237
5 guesses
254
6 guesses
14

Composition

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ILS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
70%
Green tile
26%
All gray
30%

Feedback distribution

BILLS can come back 77 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

726 answers
338 answers
219 answers
204 answers
114 answers
83 answers
71 answers
53 answers
49 answers
48 answers
47 answers
33 answers
31 answers
30 answers
21 answers
19 answers
19 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3I1L1L1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing BILLS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BILLS:

30% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
14% chance
Suggested:
STARE
9% chance
Suggested:
TRONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

30.5% →
ROATE 6.13 bits
14.2% →
STARE 5.71 bits
9.2% →
TRONE 5.66 bits
8.6% →
PORAE 5.26 bits
4.8% →
RONTE 4.79 bits
3.5% →
STANE 4.55 bits
3.0% →
ROATE 5.11 bits
2.2% →
CRANE 4.50 bits
2.1% →
SHAPE 4.57 bits
2.0% →
CARTE 4.40 bits

Research on BILLS

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

Optimal play

Opening with BILLS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,951 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 BILLS can 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BILLS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 33 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.9 of 5).

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).