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

CAROB

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈkæɹəb/

Noun

An evergreen shrub or tree, Ceratonia siliqua, native to the Mediterranean region.

Noun

The fruit of this tree.

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 CAROB performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CAROB 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 82.8% of games, misses completely in 17.2%, and leaves about 150 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,520 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.63 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 CAROB 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.

4.93 Entropy (bits)
150 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 80% of evaluated openers
1.02 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CAROB 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.

3.63 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#2,520 Rank among openers
Opening with CAROB solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.63 average. It ranks #2,520 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
69
3 guesses
957
4 guesses
1,122
5 guesses
191
6 guesses
15
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:
AOR

Feedback chances

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

Feedback distribution

CAROB can come back 112 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

408 answers
226 answers
186 answers
184 answers
130 answers
118 answers
103 answers
75 answers
52 answers
51 answers
47 answers
43 answers
40 answers
36 answers
33 answers
32 answers
31 answers
29 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
24 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3A1R1O1B3
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing CAROB

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CAROB:

17% chance
Suggested:
STILE
10% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
8% chance
Suggested:
SOLDE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.2%
STILE 6.15 bits
9.5%
SLATE 5.68 bits
7.8%
SOLDE 4.96 bits
7.8%
SEINE 5.00 bits
5.5%
STILE 4.68 bits
5.0%
TRADE 4.75 bits
4.3%
SOWNE 4.43 bits
3.2%
SHINE 4.88 bits
2.2%
SUITE 4.76 bits
2.1%
SIDLE 4.89 bits

Research on CAROB

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

Optimal play

Opening with CAROB, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,476 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 #787 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.63, at or below the proven-optimal 3.66, 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 KEHRUHB.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CAROB is a kind of bean or tree.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CAROB 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.

In a sentence

The carob is a fruit very answered in Kabylie.
© tatoeba.org contributor Igider (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).