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

GIRDS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of gird

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of gird

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 GIRDS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts GIRDS 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 79.7% of games, misses completely in 20.3%, and leaves about 196 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,169 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe GIRDS 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.

4.54 Entropy (bits)
196 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 54% of evaluated openers
1.41 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GIRDS 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
99.92% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#4,169 Rank among openers
Opening with GIRDS left 2 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 3.66 average. It ranks #4,169 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
51
3 guesses
922
4 guesses
1,176
5 guesses
191
6 guesses
12
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:
IRS

Feedback chances

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

Feedback distribution

GIRDS can come back 88 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

482 answers
281 answers
278 answers
143 answers
88 answers
85 answers
84 answers
76 answers
75 answers
75 answers
64 answers
57 answers
35 answers
34 answers
34 answers
31 answers
29 answers
29 answers
24 answers
23 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
10 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2I1R1D2S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing GIRDS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GIRDS:

20% chance
Suggested:
OLATE
12% chance
Suggested:
STALE
12% chance
Suggested:
COATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.3%
OLATE 6.03 bits
11.8%
STALE 5.74 bits
11.7%
COATE 5.45 bits
6.0%
CLINE 5.26 bits
3.7%
POTAE 4.76 bits
3.6%
SPATE 5.03 bits
3.5%
DEALT 5.05 bits
3.2%
STILE 4.46 bits
3.2%
TRICE 4.61 bits
3.2%
CONTE 4.40 bits

Research on GIRDS

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

Optimal play

Opening with GIRDS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #4,395 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 GIRDS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.69, 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 GURDZ.

Rhymes with WORDS BIRDS NERDS HERDS CURDS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, GIRDS is a kind of set or ring.

Synonyms arm

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
GIRDS sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

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).