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

CORDS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kɔːdz//kɔɹdz/

Noun

plural of cord

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of cord

Noun

Corduroys.

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 CORDS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CORDS 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 81.7% of games, misses completely in 18.3%, and leaves about 165 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,711 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.61 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 CORDS 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.

4.80 Entropy (bits)
165 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 72% of evaluated openers
1.15 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CORDS 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.

3.61 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#1,711 Rank among openers
Opening with CORDS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.61 average. It ranks #1,711 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
58
3 guesses
996
4 guesses
1,113
5 guesses
171
6 guesses
16
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

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ORS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
28%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

CORDS can come back 100 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

434 answers
265 answers
241 answers
109 answers
99 answers
98 answers
82 answers
81 answers
73 answers
66 answers
61 answers
57 answers
50 answers
38 answers
33 answers
33 answers
30 answers
28 answers
28 answers
28 answers
26 answers
22 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
15 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3O1R1D2S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing CORDS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CORDS:

18% chance
Suggested:
LIANE
11% chance
Suggested:
STALE
10% chance
Suggested:
LEANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.3%
LIANE 6.18 bits
11.2%
STALE 5.74 bits
10.2%
LEANT 5.42 bits
4.6%
ALINE 5.39 bits
4.2%
ANILE 5.42 bits
4.1%
LIANE 5.10 bits
3.5%
ATONE 4.32 bits
3.4%
THALE 4.46 bits
3.1%
SPATE 4.93 bits
2.8%
DAINE 4.87 bits

Research on CORDS

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

Optimal play

Opening with CORDS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.65 guesses and ranks #1,474 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 CORDS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.61, at or below the proven-optimal 3.65, 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 KAWRDZ.

Rhymes with LORDS WARDS FORDS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CORDS is a kind of trousers.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CORDS 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.9 of 5).

In a sentence

They made a whip out of cords.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Do fish have vocal cords?
© tatoeba.org contributor mervert1 (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).