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

CLIES

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of cly

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

Use CLIES in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 95.5% 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

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 CLIES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CLIES 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 87.3% of games, misses completely in 12.7%, and leaves about 106 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #840 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 CLIES 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.

5.33 Entropy (bits)
106 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.5% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CLIES 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
#840 Rank among openers
Opening with CLIES 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 #840 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
77
3 guesses
993
4 guesses
1,100
5 guesses
170
6 guesses
12

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EILS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
87%
Green tile
38%
All gray
13%

Feedback distribution

CLIES can come back 118 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

301 answers
215 answers
154 answers
128 answers
113 answers
109 answers
98 answers
77 answers
56 answers
55 answers
51 answers
49 answers
45 answers
45 answers
44 answers
43 answers
42 answers
38 answers
35 answers
34 answers
34 answers
32 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
25 answers
23 answers
20 answers
18 answers
18 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3L1I1E1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing CLIES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CLIES:

13% chance
Suggested:
MOURN
9% chance
Suggested:
TRADE
6% chance
Suggested:
ROAST

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

12.7%
MOURN 5.62 bits
9.1%
TRADE 5.62 bits
6.5%
ROAST 5.26 bits
5.4%
OATER 4.29 bits
4.8%
DROIT 5.01 bits
4.6%
ROAST 4.86 bits
4.1%
ATOLL 4.78 bits
3.2%
LADLE 4.37 bits
2.4%
TRONE 4.28 bits
2.3%
ROANY 4.79 bits

Research on CLIES

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

Optimal play

Opening with CLIES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.62 guesses and ranks #593 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.76 guesses at best and is rank #483 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT).