5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess F tier for first-turn info

BYLAW

Yes, BYLAW was the Wordle answer on May 17, 2026 (Wordle #1793).

As an opener, it rules out about 87.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with BYLAW Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈbaɪ.lɔː//ˈbaɪ.lɔ//ˈbaɪ.lɑ/

Noun

A local custom or law of a settlement or district.

Noun

A rule made by a local authority to regulate its own affairs.

Alternative forms: by-law, byelaw, bye-law, byrlaw

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: May 17, 2026 (#1793).

See the full page for that puzzle: May 17, 2026 (#1793).

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

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How BYLAW performs as a guess

BYLAW is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 70.8% of games, misses completely in 29.2%, and leaves about 306 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,079 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

B__A_ B in the 1st position and A in the 4th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe BYLAW 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.

4.00 Entropy (bits)
306 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
87.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 22% of evaluated openers
1.95 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BYLAW 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
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#9,079 Rank among openers
Opening with BYLAW left 2 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 3.74 average. It ranks #9,079 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
39
3 guesses
793
4 guesses
1,265
5 guesses
241
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
1 vowels
Common:
AL

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
71%
Green tile
19%
All gray
29%

Example solver route

R O A T E
N A S A L
B Y L A W

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches BYLAW in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

BYLAW can come back 70 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

694 answers
365 answers
191 answers
156 answers
134 answers
84 answers
75 answers
58 answers
55 answers
54 answers
34 answers
33 answers
32 answers
32 answers
29 answers
28 answers
26 answers
24 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
14 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3Y4L1A1W4
Total: 13 points

Words With Friends

Total: 14 points

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

Try next

TOISE CRATE SLIER SIREN SLANE TARSE

Strategy after playing BYLAW

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BYLAW:

29% chance
Suggested:
TOISE
15% chance
Suggested:
CRATE
8% chance
Suggested:
SLIER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

29.2% →
TOISE 6.19 bits
15.4% →
CRATE 5.58 bits
8.0% →
SLIER 5.09 bits
6.6% →
SIREN 4.75 bits
5.6% →
SLANE 4.68 bits
3.5% →
TARSE 4.41 bits
3.2% →
SIREN 5.23 bits
2.4% →
RONTE 4.24 bits
2.3% →
RONTE 5.00 bits
2.3% →
CATER 4.55 bits

Research on BYLAW

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

Optimal play

Opening with BYLAW, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,594 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.91 guesses at best and is rank #4,398 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 3.80, 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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it BYLAW.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, BYLAW is a kind of rule.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BYLAW 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); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).