COLBY
COLBY is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
As an opener, it rules out about 89.4% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈkəʊl.bi//ˈkoʊl.bi/
- Proper noun
-
A placename:
- Proper noun
-
A habitational surname from Old Norse.
- Noun
-
A soft, moist, mild American cheese similar to cheddar, made with a washed-curd process.
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
NoThe solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.
Past Wordle answer
Not used yetNo past answer date found.
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How COLBY performs as a guess
Wordle accepts COLBY 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 73.2% of games, misses completely in 26.8%, and leaves about 252 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,499 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe COLBY 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How COLBY 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Feedback distribution
COLBY can come back 91 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for COLBY; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing COLBY
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to COLBY.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing COLBY:
Research on COLBY
Game-tree analysis and word research for COLBY, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with COLBY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,726 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 COLBY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it KOHLBEE.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- COLBY sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 2 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
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).