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

COSTE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 95.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Proper noun

A surname.

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 COSTE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts COSTE 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 88.8% of games, misses completely in 11.2%, and leaves about 102 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,580 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 COSTE 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.

5.37 Entropy (bits)
102 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 96% of evaluated openers
0.58 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How COSTE 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
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#1,580 Rank among openers
Opening with COSTE 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 3.61 average. It ranks #1,580 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
74
3 guesses
976
4 guesses
1,107
5 guesses
182
6 guesses
14
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
2 vowels
Common:
EOST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
89%
Green tile
40%
All gray
11%

Feedback distribution

COSTE can come back 115 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

267 answers
246 answers
143 answers
123 answers
122 answers
100 answers
92 answers
86 answers
64 answers
62 answers
58 answers
55 answers
50 answers
43 answers
35 answers
34 answers
34 answers
33 answers
30 answers
30 answers
26 answers
26 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
21 answers
18 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3O1S1T1E1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing COSTE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing COSTE:

11% chance
Suggested:
DAILY
10% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
6% chance
Suggested:
GLARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

11.2%
DAILY 5.71 bits
10.4%
ARIEL 5.22 bits
6.0%
GLARE 4.62 bits
5.2%
SNARL 4.97 bits
5.1%
ADORN 5.12 bits
4.2%
TRAIL 5.36 bits
3.9%
ARIEL 4.58 bits
3.6%
MOLDY 4.20 bits
2.7%
STAIR 4.55 bits
2.6%
RAINY 4.56 bits

Research on COSTE

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

Optimal play

Opening with COSTE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.61 guesses and ranks #386 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 COSTE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

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

Rhymes with COAST GHOST TOAST ROAST BOAST

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
COSTE 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.

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).