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

GILTS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of gilt

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 GILTS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts GILTS 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 80.0% of games, misses completely in 20.0%, and leaves about 173 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,952 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 GILTS 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.

4.74 Entropy (bits)
173 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 68% of evaluated openers
1.21 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GILTS 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.

3.62 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#1,952 Rank among openers
Opening with GILTS 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 3.62 average. It ranks #1,952 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
61
3 guesses
970
4 guesses
1,138
5 guesses
174
6 guesses
10
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
1 vowels
Common:
ILST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
24%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

GILTS can come back 96 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

474 answers
217 answers
206 answers
172 answers
131 answers
101 answers
67 answers
66 answers
64 answers
59 answers
59 answers
57 answers
53 answers
51 answers
51 answers
47 answers
26 answers
26 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2I1L1T1S1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing GILTS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GILTS:

20% chance
Suggested:
CADRE
9% chance
Suggested:
CRANE
9% chance
Suggested:
PHARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.0%
CADRE 6.07 bits
9.1%
CRANE 5.33 bits
8.7%
PHARE 5.61 bits
7.2%
CARET 5.53 bits
5.5%
CRANE 5.46 bits
4.3%
PEART 4.87 bits
2.8%
CARNE 4.72 bits
2.8%
ARGUE 4.95 bits
2.7%
PONEY 4.45 bits
2.5%
ROANY 4.58 bits

Research on GILTS

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

Optimal play

Opening with GILTS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,363 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.76 guesses at best and is rank #398 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.66, 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 GIHLTS.

Rhymes with TILTS KILTS WILTS HILTS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, GILTS is a kind of coat.

Synonyms gold golden gilded

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
GILTS 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 relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).