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

EXIES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 88.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Expenses (charged to one's employer).

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 EXIES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts EXIES 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 75.0% of games, misses completely in 25.0%, and leaves about 270 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,997 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.90 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 EXIES 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.

3.91 Entropy (bits)
270 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 19% of evaluated openers
2.04 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How EXIES 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.

3.90 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#13,997 Rank among openers
Opening with EXIES left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.90 average. It ranks #13,997 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
35
3 guesses
603
4 guesses
1,300
5 guesses
387
6 guesses
26
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
3 vowels
Common:
EIS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
75%
Green tile
28%
All gray
25%

Feedback distribution

EXIES can come back 57 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

593 answers
339 answers
246 answers
211 answers
142 answers
137 answers
105 answers
53 answers
53 answers
52 answers
51 answers
44 answers
40 answers
38 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
10 answers
10 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers
5 answers
5 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

E1X8I1E1S1
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing EXIES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing EXIES:

25% chance
Suggested:
TALON
14% chance
Suggested:
CRATE
10% chance
Suggested:
SLART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.0%
TALON 5.73 bits
14.3%
CRATE 5.52 bits
10.4%
SLART 5.25 bits
8.9%
ANTIC 5.00 bits
6.0%
ROANY 4.18 bits
5.8%
SLART 4.96 bits
4.4%
CLARY 4.55 bits
2.2%
TILDE 4.28 bits
2.2%
CARTE 3.72 bits
2.2%
DETER 3.76 bits

Research on EXIES

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

Optimal play

Opening with EXIES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.89 guesses and ranks #13,612 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 EXIES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.90; proven optimal play reaches 3.89. 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 EHKSEEZ. 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.