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

CYSTS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /sɪsts/

Noun

plural of cyst

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it SIHSTS.

Rhymes with LISTS FISTS MISTS

Use CYSTS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 86.2% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

How CYSTS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CYSTS 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 69.3% of games, misses completely in 30.7%, and leaves about 330 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,593 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.80 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 CYSTS 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.

3.74 Entropy (bits)
330 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
86.2% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CYSTS 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.

3.80 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#11,593 Rank among openers
Opening with CYSTS left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.80 average. It ranks #11,593 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
25
3 guesses
738
4 guesses
1,297
5 guesses
269
6 guesses
23

Composition

4/5 unique
0 vowels
Common:
ST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
69%
Green tile
19%
All gray
31%

Feedback distribution

CYSTS can come back 54 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

733 answers
279 answers
235 answers
229 answers
136 answers
129 answers
118 answers
64 answers
53 answers
42 answers
38 answers
33 answers
21 answers
21 answers
19 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3Y4S1T1S1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing CYSTS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CYSTS:

31% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
12% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
10% chance
Suggested:
PAIRE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

30.7% →
ARIEL 6.20 bits
11.7% →
ARIEL 5.70 bits
9.9% →
PAIRE 5.45 bits
9.6% →
DROLE 5.00 bits
5.7% →
RAILE 5.31 bits
5.4% →
ARISE 4.74 bits
4.9% →
LIANE 5.26 bits
2.7% →
RAINE 4.59 bits
2.2% →
RAINE 4.33 bits
1.8% →
PLORE 4.35 bits

Research on CYSTS

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

Optimal play

Opening with CYSTS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.86 guesses and ranks #12,980 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 CYSTS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.80, at or below the proven-optimal 3.86, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CYSTS 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 (2.9 of 5).

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).