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

GONGS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 85.2% of possible answers.

Open Solver with GONGS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of gong

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of gong

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 GONGS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts GONGS 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 67.4% of games, misses completely in 32.6%, and leaves about 352 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,964 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.81 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__G_ G in the 1st position and G in the 4th position _O__S O in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe GONGS 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.

3.77 Entropy (bits)
352 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
85.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 14% of evaluated openers
2.18 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GONGS 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.

3.81 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#11,964 Rank among openers
Opening with GONGS left 4 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 3.81 average. It ranks #11,964 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
31
3 guesses
710
4 guesses
1,306
5 guesses
282
6 guesses
21
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

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
NOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
67%
Green tile
25%
All gray
33%

Feedback distribution

GONGS can come back 60 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

774 answers
350 answers
188 answers
166 answers
147 answers
77 answers
68 answers
61 answers
58 answers
54 answers
43 answers
38 answers
33 answers
31 answers
26 answers
22 answers
21 answers
16 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2O1N1G2S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Try next

RAILE STALE TALER ARIEL CADIE REACT

Strategy after playing GONGS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GONGS:

33% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
15% chance
Suggested:
STALE
8% chance
Suggested:
TALER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

32.6% →
RAILE 6.20 bits
14.7% →
STALE 5.71 bits
7.9% →
TALER 5.23 bits
7.0% →
ARIEL 5.50 bits
6.2% →
TALER 4.63 bits
3.2% →
CADIE 4.63 bits
2.9% →
REACT 4.18 bits
2.6% →
LIANE 4.49 bits
2.4% →
BLARE 4.40 bits
2.3% →
LAIDE 4.82 bits

Research on GONGS

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

Optimal play

Opening with GONGS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.83 guesses and ranks #11,986 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.98 guesses at best and is rank #5,860 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.81, at or below the proven-optimal 3.83, 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 GAWNGZ.

Rhymes with SONGS LONGS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, GONGS is a kind of instrument or device.

Synonyms bell CHIME

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
GONGS 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 sound (3.6 of 5).

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).