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

FIDES

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Proper noun

Roman goddess of trust and loyalty. Her Greek equivalent was Pistis.

Proper noun

37 Fides, a main belt asteroid.

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

How it sounds

One syllable Say it FYDZ.

Rhymes with SIDES RIDES HIDES TIDES

In a sentence

He didn't miss the opportunity to tout his bona fides.
© tatoeba.org contributor shekitten (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use FIDES in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 92.4% 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 FIDES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts FIDES 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 81.8% of games, misses completely in 18.2%, and leaves about 182 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,562 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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 FIDES 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.

4.59 Entropy (bits)
182 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How FIDES 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#5,562 Rank among openers
Opening with FIDES left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.68 average. It ranks #5,562 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
61
3 guesses
852
4 guesses
1,233
5 guesses
196
6 guesses
11

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EIS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
29%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

FIDES can come back 92 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

433 answers
301 answers
219 answers
165 answers
154 answers
145 answers
79 answers
72 answers
71 answers
66 answers
64 answers
43 answers
40 answers
34 answers
27 answers
26 answers
22 answers
21 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4I1D2E1S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing FIDES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FIDES:

18% chance
Suggested:
CAROL
13% chance
Suggested:
LEARE
9% chance
Suggested:
SLART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.2% →
CAROL 6.02 bits
12.6% →
LEARE 5.53 bits
9.2% →
SLART 5.32 bits
6.9% →
LATER 4.44 bits
6.5% →
CAIRN 5.43 bits
6.1% →
SLART 4.97 bits
3.3% →
ROANY 4.84 bits
3.0% →
CLARY 3.87 bits
3.0% →
TRINE 4.43 bits
2.8% →
REATE 4.82 bits

Research on FIDES

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

Optimal play

Opening with FIDES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,849 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 FIDES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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
FIDES 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).