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

CHONS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 90.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Proper noun

plural of Chon

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 CHONS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CHONS 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 74.9% of games, misses completely in 25.1%, and leaves about 220 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,775 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 CHONS 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.

4.61 Entropy (bits)
220 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 59% of evaluated openers
1.33 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CHONS 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.

3.62 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#1,775 Rank among openers
Opening with CHONS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.62 average. It ranks #1,775 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
64
3 guesses
980
4 guesses
1,125
5 guesses
168
6 guesses
17
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:
NOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
75%
Green tile
28%
All gray
25%

Feedback distribution

CHONS can come back 102 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

597 answers
245 answers
179 answers
153 answers
90 answers
79 answers
75 answers
71 answers
65 answers
63 answers
41 answers
41 answers
38 answers
38 answers
37 answers
34 answers
32 answers
29 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
24 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3H4O1N1S1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing CHONS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CHONS:

25% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
10% chance
Suggested:
SPATE
8% chance
Suggested:
TALER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.1%
RAILE 6.28 bits
10.3%
SPATE 5.73 bits
7.5%
TALER 5.32 bits
6.4%
ARIEL 5.42 bits
3.8%
BLARE 4.69 bits
3.3%
TIARE 4.95 bits
3.2%
RAILE 5.20 bits
3.0%
IRATE 5.08 bits
2.7%
PARTE 5.21 bits
2.7%
TALER 4.54 bits

Research on CHONS

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

Optimal play

Opening with CHONS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #3,983 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.80 guesses at best and is rank #1,332 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.69, 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 CHAHNZ. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CHONS is a kind of unit.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0).