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

COOTY

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

As an opener, it rules out about 87.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Adjective

Afflicted with body lice or coots.

Noun

Alternative spelling of cootie.

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 COOTY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts COOTY 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 70.3% of games, misses completely in 29.7%, and leaves about 293 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,239 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.77 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 COOTY 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.

4.13 Entropy (bits)
293 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 29% of evaluated openers
1.81 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How COOTY 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.

3.77 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#10,239 Rank among openers
Opening with COOTY left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.77 average. It ranks #10,239 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
40
3 guesses
794
4 guesses
1,218
5 guesses
275
6 guesses
25
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:
OT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
70%
Green tile
42%
All gray
30%

Feedback distribution

COOTY can come back 73 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

706 answers
301 answers
194 answers
120 answers
101 answers
97 answers
91 answers
89 answers
59 answers
47 answers
42 answers
41 answers
37 answers
36 answers
32 answers
29 answers
25 answers
20 answers
20 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3O1O1T1Y4
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing COOTY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing COOTY:

30% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
13% chance
Suggested:
SLIER
8% chance
Suggested:
RAILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

29.7%
RAILE 6.23 bits
12.7%
SLIER 5.68 bits
8.2%
RAILE 4.77 bits
5.1%
LIANE 5.24 bits
4.3%
RAILE 5.13 bits
4.1%
GLARE 4.63 bits
3.8%
MANOR 5.09 bits
3.7%
GLARE 4.72 bits
2.5%
URASE 4.64 bits
2.0%
RAINE 4.51 bits

Research on COOTY

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

Optimal play

Opening with COOTY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,811 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.97 guesses at best and is rank #5,653 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.77, at or below the proven-optimal 3.80, 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 KOOTEE. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.