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

COSES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of cose

Noun

plural of cos

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 COSES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts COSES 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 83.1% of games, misses completely in 16.9%, and leaves about 185 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,735 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.78 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 COSES 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.

4.47 Entropy (bits)
185 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 50% of evaluated openers
1.48 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How COSES 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.

3.78 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#10,735 Rank among openers
Opening with COSES solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.78 average. It ranks #10,735 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
58
3 guesses
738
4 guesses
1,253
5 guesses
280
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:
EOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
34%
All gray
17%

Feedback distribution

COSES can come back 81 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

401 answers
357 answers
181 answers
173 answers
170 answers
122 answers
119 answers
76 answers
72 answers
66 answers
63 answers
43 answers
42 answers
38 answers
30 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
23 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
17 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3O1S1E1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing COSES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing COSES:

17% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL
15% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
8% chance
Suggested:
LATER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.9%
TRAIL 5.96 bits
15.0%
TIARE 5.44 bits
7.6%
LATER 4.44 bits
7.3%
TALON 5.07 bits
7.2%
SLANT 5.25 bits
5.1%
LAIRY 4.15 bits
5.0%
SLART 4.95 bits
3.2%
RAINY 4.56 bits
3.0%
LAIRY 4.69 bits
2.8%
DRONE 4.17 bits

Research on COSES

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

Optimal play

Opening with COSES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,285 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 COSES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.78; proven optimal play reaches 3.77. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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 KOHSUHZ. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, COSES is a kind of function or lettuce.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0).