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

CHIPS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 87.9% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /t͡ʃɪps/

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of chip

Noun

plural of chip

Noun

A carpenter.

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 CHIPS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CHIPS 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 286 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,884 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.65 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 CHIPS 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.

4.31 Entropy (bits)
286 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 39% of evaluated openers
1.64 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CHIPS 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.

3.65 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#3,884 Rank among openers
Opening with CHIPS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.67 means those games clustered within about 0.67 of a guess of the 3.65 average. It ranks #3,884 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
50
3 guesses
926
4 guesses
1,183
5 guesses
184
6 guesses
11
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:
IS

Feedback chances

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

Feedback distribution

CHIPS can come back 86 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

724 answers
228 answers
201 answers
115 answers
95 answers
92 answers
76 answers
71 answers
68 answers
46 answers
44 answers
43 answers
43 answers
35 answers
35 answers
33 answers
25 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3H4I1P3S1
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing CHIPS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CHIPS:

30% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
10% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
8% chance
Suggested:
TILDE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

30.5%
ROATE 5.99 bits
9.6%
ROATE 5.66 bits
8.5%
TILDE 5.24 bits
4.8%
GLARE 5.15 bits
4.0%
ROAKE 5.11 bits
3.9%
PARLE 5.18 bits
3.2%
ROATE 5.32 bits
3.0%
REACT 5.16 bits
2.9%
LATER 4.83 bits
1.9%
LEANT 4.18 bits

Research on CHIPS

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

Optimal play

Opening with CHIPS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,136 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.83 guesses at best and is rank #2,085 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.65, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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

One syllable Say it CHIHPS.

Rhymes with SHIPS TRIPS CLIPS SLIPS GRIPS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CHIPS is a kind of murphy.

Synonyms FRIES

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CHIPS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 16 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 5, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 93 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with taste (4.4 of 5).

In a sentence

Would you like chips with that?
© tatoeba.org contributor sundown (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I like chips a lot.
© tatoeba.org contributor sundown (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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).