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

FIVES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 90.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /faɪvz/

Noun

plural of five

Noun

A ball game, somewhat like tennis, played against a wall.

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 FIVES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts FIVES 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 78.3% of games, misses completely in 21.7%, and leaves about 229 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,828 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 FIVES 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.

4.24 Entropy (bits)
229 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 35% of evaluated openers
1.71 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How FIVES 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
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#10,828 Rank among openers
Opening with FIVES solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.78 average. It ranks #10,828 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
50
3 guesses
724
4 guesses
1,289
5 guesses
277
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:
EIS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
27%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

FIVES can come back 74 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

515 answers
342 answers
229 answers
181 answers
167 answers
141 answers
82 answers
79 answers
68 answers
44 answers
44 answers
38 answers
30 answers
27 answers
26 answers
23 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
17 answers
17 answers
17 answers
14 answers
11 answers
11 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4I1V4E1S1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing FIVES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FIVES:

22% chance
Suggested:
CORAL
14% chance
Suggested:
LEARE
10% chance
Suggested:
SLART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.7%
CORAL 5.80 bits
14.4%
LEARE 5.49 bits
9.6%
SLART 5.28 bits
7.6%
CAIRN 5.36 bits
7.0%
OATER 4.33 bits
5.9%
SLART 4.91 bits
3.5%
TARGE 4.28 bits
3.3%
MINTY 3.78 bits
2.9%
STINK 4.38 bits
1.9%
STEER 3.88 bits

Research on FIVES

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

Optimal play

Opening with FIVES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.79 guesses and ranks #10,404 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 FIVES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.78, at or below the proven-optimal 3.79, 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 FYVZ.

Rhymes with WIVES DIVES HIVES RIVES VIVES

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, FIVES is a kind of game.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
FIVES sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.4 of 5).

In a sentence

Give me the money in fives and tens.
© tatoeba.org contributor _undertoad (CC BY 2.0 FR)
He's Muslim and he prays fives time a day.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).