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

GAPES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.2% of possible answers.

Open Solver with GAPES Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ɡeɪps/

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of gape

Noun

plural of gape

Noun

A fit of yawning.

“The gapes is contagious: when one person gets the gapes, pretty soon you've got a roomful of gapers.”

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 GAPES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts GAPES 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 85.6% of games, misses completely in 14.4%, and leaves about 137 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,358 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

G___S G in the 1st position and S in the 5th position G__E_ G in the 1st position and E in the 4th position _A__S A in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position GA_ES G in the 1st position, A in the 2nd position, E in the 4th position, and S in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in GAPES.

First-turn measures

All four describe GAPES 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.

4.91 Entropy (bits)
137 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 78% of evaluated openers
1.04 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GAPES 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.

3.66 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#4,358 Rank among openers
Opening with GAPES left 1 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 3.66 average. It ranks #4,358 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
66
3 guesses
887
4 guesses
1,194
5 guesses
195
6 guesses
11
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:
AES

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
31%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

GAPES can come back 97 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

343 answers
226 answers
190 answers
162 answers
149 answers
137 answers
123 answers
84 answers
76 answers
63 answers
56 answers
47 answers
42 answers
39 answers
36 answers
36 answers
35 answers
32 answers
32 answers
27 answers
25 answers
22 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2A1P3E1S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Try next

COURT TRINE TRAIL OLDER HOIST TRADE

Strategy after playing GAPES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GAPES:

14% chance
Suggested:
COURT
10% chance
Suggested:
TRINE
8% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.4% →
COURT 5.80 bits
9.5% →
TRINE 5.24 bits
8.0% →
TRAIL 5.30 bits
6.8% →
OLDER 4.21 bits
6.3% →
HOIST 5.09 bits
5.8% →
TRADE 4.76 bits
5.2% →
CLARY 3.97 bits
3.5% →
RONTE 4.62 bits
3.2% →
SHALT 4.60 bits
2.7% →
POUTY 4.87 bits

Research on GAPES

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

Optimal play

Opening with GAPES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,899 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 GAPES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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 GAYPS. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, GAPES is a kind of disparity or space.

Synonyms BREAK opening spread CRACK breach col

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
GAPES 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 (3.6 of 5).

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; 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).