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

COOTS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with COOTS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kuːts/

Noun

plural of coot

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 COOTS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts COOTS 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 72.4% of games, misses completely in 27.6%, and leaves about 260 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,713 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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__T_ C in the 1st position and T in the 4th position _O__S O in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position CO_TS C in the 1st position, O in the 2nd position, T in the 4th position, and S in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe COOTS 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.

4.30 Entropy (bits)
260 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 39% of evaluated openers
1.64 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How COOTS 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.

3.70 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#6,713 Rank among openers
Opening with COOTS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.70 average. It ranks #6,713 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
53
3 guesses
868
4 guesses
1,185
5 guesses
232
6 guesses
15
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
OST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
72%
Green tile
33%
All gray
28%

Feedback distribution

COOTS can come back 87 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

656 answers
256 answers
214 answers
114 answers
110 answers
101 answers
100 answers
91 answers
72 answers
69 answers
45 answers
35 answers
34 answers
31 answers
28 answers
25 answers
23 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3O1O1T1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Try next

RAILE ARIEL GLARE PEART LIANE MANOR

Strategy after playing COOTS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing COOTS:

28% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
11% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
9% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

27.6% →
RAILE 6.32 bits
10.8% →
RAILE 5.54 bits
9.0% →
ARIEL 5.72 bits
4.8% →
GLARE 4.62 bits
4.6% →
PEART 4.82 bits
4.3% →
LIANE 5.28 bits
4.2% →
RAILE 5.30 bits
3.8% →
MANOR 5.08 bits
3.0% →
GRADE 4.70 bits
2.9% →
FAIRE 4.62 bits

Research on COOTS

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

Optimal play

Opening with COOTS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,318 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.88 guesses at best and is rank #3,642 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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 KOOTS.

Rhymes with ROOTS BOOTS SUITS TOOTS HOOTS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, COOTS is a kind of rail.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
COOTS 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.5 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).