CHESS
CHESS is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /t͡ʃɛs/
- Noun
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A board game for two players, each beginning with sixteen chess pieces moving according to fixed rules across a chessboard with the objective to checkmate the opposing king.
- Noun
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Any of several species of grass in the genus Bromus, generally considered weeds.
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English ches, chesse, from Old French eschés, plural of eschec, from Medieval Latin scaccus, from Arabic شَاه (šāh, “king [in chess]”), from Classical Persian شاه (šāh, “shah, king”), from Middle Persian 𐭬𐭫𐭪𐭠 (mlkʾ /šāh/), from Old Persian 𐏋 (XŠ /xšāyaθiya/).
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it CHEHS.
Rhymes with GUESS PRESS DRESS BLESS CRESS
Related meanings
Synonyms CHEAT
In a sentence
You like chess, don't you?
Are you good at chess?
Use CHESS in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 87.1% of possible answers.
Wordle status
A word can be a playable guess without being a possible answer.
Playable guess
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
No completed appearanceNo 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.
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See what the public sample says →CHESS in Connections
6 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . Showing the 5 most recent. A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #1212
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CHESS appeared in KINDS OF BOARDS (blue group).
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· Puzzle #1113
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CHESS appeared in THEY HAVE BOARDS (purple group).
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· Puzzle #1075
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CHESS appeared in KINDS OF PIES (yellow group).
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· Puzzle #772
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CHESS appeared in ___ PIE (purple group).
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· Puzzle #597
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CHESS appeared in SPEED ___ (purple group).
How CHESS performs as a guess
CHESS is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 74.8% of games, misses completely in 25.2%, and leaves about 307 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,315 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.82 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe CHESS 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How CHESS 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches CHESS in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
CHESS can come back 73 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for CHESS; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing CHESS
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to CHESS.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing CHESS:
Research on CHESS
Game-tree analysis and word research for CHESS, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with CHESS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.84 guesses and ranks #12,473 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 4.01 guesses at best and is rank #6,302 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.82, at or below the proven-optimal 3.84, 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
- CHESS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 9 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Learner level
- Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A2); among the first words English learners study.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 7, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 89 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.5 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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).