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

CARBS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kɑːbz//kɑɹbz/

Noun

plural of carb

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

How it sounds

One syllable Say it KAHRBZ.

Rhymes with BARBS

In a sentence

This has too many carbs.
© tatoeba.org contributor DJ_Saidez (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I need carbs from time to time.
© tatoeba.org contributor Eccles17 (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use CARBS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 93.5% 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.

How CARBS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CARBS 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 83.3% of games, misses completely in 16.7%, and leaves about 156 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,460 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.61 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 CARBS 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.

4.82 Entropy (bits)
156 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.5% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CARBS 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.

3.61 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#1,460 Rank among openers
Opening with CARBS 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 3.61 average. It ranks #1,460 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
63
3 guesses
983
4 guesses
1,125
5 guesses
172
6 guesses
9

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ARS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
28%
All gray
17%

Feedback distribution

CARBS can come back 101 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

399 answers
242 answers
229 answers
185 answers
106 answers
102 answers
93 answers
80 answers
73 answers
62 answers
57 answers
53 answers
48 answers
40 answers
35 answers
31 answers
31 answers
29 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3A1R1B3S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing CARBS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CARBS:

17% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
10% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
10% chance
Suggested:
TOILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.7% →
TOILE 6.11 bits
10.2% →
TOILE 5.18 bits
9.6% →
TOILE 5.45 bits
7.8% →
ALATE 5.48 bits
4.4% →
TRADE 4.83 bits
4.3% →
TONEY 4.36 bits
3.9% →
THALE 4.84 bits
3.4% →
TUILE 4.87 bits
3.1% →
TOILE 5.22 bits
2.6% →
SPITE 4.72 bits

Research on CARBS

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

Optimal play

Opening with CARBS, 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.

In hard mode it averages 3.78 guesses at best and is rank #812 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.61, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CARBS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 2 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).