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

CLAES

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kleːz/

Noun

clothes

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

Variant of clathes, from Middle English clathes, from Old English clāþas (“clothes”), plural of clāþ (“cloth”). More at clothes.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it KLAYZ.

Rhymes with PLAYS RAISE PHASE STAYS BLAZE

Use CLAES in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 96.1% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No 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.

How CLAES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CLAES 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 88.8% of games, misses completely in 11.2%, and leaves about 94 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #540 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.59 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 CLAES 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.

5.49 Entropy (bits)
94 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
96.1% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CLAES 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.

3.59 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#540 Rank among openers
Opening with CLAES left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.59 average. It ranks #540 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
81
3 guesses
991
4 guesses
1,116
5 guesses
150
6 guesses
14

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AELS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
89%
Green tile
39%
All gray
11%

Feedback distribution

CLAES can come back 121 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

268 answers
193 answers
156 answers
140 answers
124 answers
86 answers
84 answers
65 answers
65 answers
52 answers
50 answers
48 answers
43 answers
43 answers
42 answers
41 answers
41 answers
40 answers
39 answers
39 answers
35 answers
31 answers
28 answers
28 answers
26 answers
24 answers
23 answers
21 answers
19 answers
17 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3L1A1E1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing CLAES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CLAES:

11% chance
Suggested:
DONUT
8% chance
Suggested:
TRINE
7% chance
Suggested:
RAINY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

11.2% →
DONUT 5.70 bits
8.1% →
TRINE 5.42 bits
6.5% →
RAINY 4.92 bits
5.9% →
SNORT 5.14 bits
5.2% →
TONER 4.35 bits
3.6% →
RONTE 4.70 bits
3.5% →
DILLY 4.84 bits
2.7% →
TRIDE 4.34 bits
2.7% →
RAINY 4.14 bits
2.2% →
TOUCH 4.48 bits

Research on CLAES

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

Optimal play

Opening with CLAES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.61 guesses and ranks #418 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with CLAES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, at or below the proven-optimal 3.61, 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
CLAES 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).