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

GOALS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.5% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ɡoʊlz//ɡəʊlz//ɡɔʊlz/

Adjective

Extremely admirable; worthy of being set as a goal and emulated.

“Your relationship is goals AF!”

Noun

plural of goal

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of goal

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 GOALS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts GOALS 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 84.5% of games, misses completely in 15.5%, and leaves about 131 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,049 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.60 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 GOALS 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.

5.02 Entropy (bits)
131 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.5% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 84% of evaluated openers
0.93 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GOALS 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.

3.60 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#1,049 Rank among openers
Opening with GOALS 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 3.60 average. It ranks #1,049 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
67
3 guesses
1,005
4 guesses
1,095
5 guesses
174
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
2 vowels
Common:
ALOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
34%
All gray
16%

Feedback distribution

GOALS can come back 104 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

369 answers
209 answers
174 answers
130 answers
122 answers
120 answers
97 answers
89 answers
75 answers
73 answers
69 answers
61 answers
57 answers
51 answers
48 answers
37 answers
35 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2O1A1L1S1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing GOALS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GOALS:

16% chance
Suggested:
TRINE
9% chance
Suggested:
CARET
7% chance
Suggested:
STIRE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.5%
TRINE 6.07 bits
8.8%
CARET 5.36 bits
7.3%
STIRE 5.47 bits
5.5%
TRINE 5.34 bits
5.1%
CRUET 4.64 bits
5.1%
PLIER 4.94 bits
4.1%
DRICE 5.04 bits
3.7%
RENAL 4.60 bits
3.2%
PARTE 4.78 bits
3.1%
CRUET 4.09 bits

Research on GOALS

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

Optimal play

Opening with GOALS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,381 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 GOALS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, 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 GOHLZ.

Rhymes with ROLES HOLES ROLLS SOULS POLLS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, GOALS is a kind of content or end.

Synonyms end finish destination

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
GOALS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 89 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.4 of 5).

In a sentence

Our goals are the same.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
You have no goals in life.
© tatoeba.org contributor sundown (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).