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

CLANS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /klænz/

Noun

plural of clan

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

How it sounds

One syllable Say it KLANZ.

Rhymes with PLANS TRANS SCANS SPANS KRANZ

Related meanings

Synonyms TRIBE kin kindred

In a sentence

Our clans made a treaty to live in peace.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Ninjas were solitary fighters but also members of clans.
© tatoeba.org contributor Miktsoanit (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use CLANS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 94.4% 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 CLANS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CLANS 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 83.5% of games, misses completely in 16.5%, and leaves about 134 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #102 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.56 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 CLANS 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.

5.11 Entropy (bits)
134 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CLANS 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.

3.56 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#102 Rank among openers
Opening with CLANS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.67 means those games clustered within about 0.67 of a guess of the 3.56 average. It ranks #102 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
69
3 guesses
1,060
4 guesses
1,082
5 guesses
132
6 guesses
10

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ALNS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
32%
All gray
16%

Feedback distribution

CLANS can come back 110 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

393 answers
203 answers
181 answers
151 answers
124 answers
95 answers
69 answers
68 answers
68 answers
60 answers
58 answers
57 answers
56 answers
44 answers
42 answers
40 answers
29 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
25 answers
23 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3L1A1N1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing CLANS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CLANS:

16% chance
Suggested:
TRODE
9% chance
Suggested:
ROUET
8% chance
Suggested:
TAMER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.5% →
TRODE 6.12 bits
8.5% →
ROUET 5.65 bits
7.6% →
TAMER 5.28 bits
6.3% →
LIBEL 5.07 bits
5.2% →
GOIER 5.14 bits
4.0% →
RATEL 4.60 bits
2.9% →
TRICE 5.17 bits
2.9% →
TRIDE 4.79 bits
2.9% →
TRIDE 4.95 bits
2.5% →
PATER 4.82 bits

Research on CLANS

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

Optimal play

Opening with CLANS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.62 guesses and ranks #683 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.73 guesses at best and is rank #105 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.56, at or below the proven-optimal 3.62, 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
CLANS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 3 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.2 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).