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

CHOWS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 86.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with CHOWS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /t͡ʃaʊz/

Noun

plural of chow

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of chow

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 CHOWS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CHOWS 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 67.5% of games, misses completely in 32.5%, and leaves about 329 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,448 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.73 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

C___S C in the 1st position and S in the 5th position C__W_ C in the 1st position and W in the 4th position _H__S H in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in CHOWS.

First-turn measures

All four describe CHOWS 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.

4.06 Entropy (bits)
329 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
86.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 26% of evaluated openers
1.88 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CHOWS 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.

3.73 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#8,448 Rank among openers
Opening with CHOWS 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 3.73 average. It ranks #8,448 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
50
3 guesses
820
4 guesses
1,221
5 guesses
244
6 guesses
19
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:
OS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
68%
Green tile
23%
All gray
32%

Feedback distribution

CHOWS can come back 82 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

771 answers
288 answers
228 answers
102 answers
90 answers
86 answers
74 answers
52 answers
49 answers
43 answers
43 answers
40 answers
37 answers
34 answers
33 answers
33 answers
33 answers
29 answers
26 answers
24 answers
19 answers
19 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3H4O1W4S1
Total: 13 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Try next

RAILE TIARE TONER GRADE MAILE PARTE

Strategy after playing CHOWS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CHOWS:

32% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
12% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
10% chance
Suggested:
TONER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

32.5% →
RAILE 6.28 bits
12.1% →
TIARE 5.66 bits
9.6% →
TONER 5.28 bits
4.3% →
GRADE 4.68 bits
3.8% →
RAILE 5.31 bits
3.6% →
MAILE 5.04 bits
3.1% →
PARTE 5.19 bits
2.2% →
TALER 4.94 bits
2.1% →
RAISE 4.18 bits
1.8% →
PEART 3.84 bits

Research on CHOWS

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

Optimal play

Opening with CHOWS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,450 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.89 guesses at best and is rank #3,884 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, at or below the proven-optimal 3.77, 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 CHOWZ.

Rhymes with BROWS HOWES PLOWS THOUS DHOWS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CHOWS is a kind of dynasty or fare.

Synonyms CHUCK eats zhou grub

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CHOWS sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with taste (3.4 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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).