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

GUARS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of guar

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 GUARS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts GUARS 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 84.6% of games, misses completely in 15.4%, and leaves about 148 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,562 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 GUARS 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.

4.85 Entropy (bits)
148 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 75% of evaluated openers
1.09 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GUARS 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
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#4,562 Rank among openers
Opening with GUARS left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.66 average. It ranks #4,562 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
57
3 guesses
929
4 guesses
1,132
5 guesses
219
6 guesses
15
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:
ARSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
85%
Green tile
30%
All gray
15%

Feedback distribution

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

366 answers
246 answers
241 answers
185 answers
123 answers
81 answers
81 answers
77 answers
68 answers
65 answers
58 answers
51 answers
49 answers
44 answers
41 answers
37 answers
34 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
18 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2U1A1R1S1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing GUARS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GUARS:

15% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
10% chance
Suggested:
CLOTE
10% chance
Suggested:
TOILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.4%
TOILE 5.98 bits
10.4%
CLOTE 5.37 bits
10.2%
TOILE 5.07 bits
7.8%
STILE 5.44 bits
5.2%
TALER 4.58 bits
3.4%
CLINE 4.81 bits
3.4%
CLOTE 4.38 bits
3.2%
CONTE 5.04 bits
2.9%
CLINE 4.23 bits
2.7%
SALET 4.52 bits

Research on GUARS

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

Optimal play

Opening with GUARS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,675 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 GUARS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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 GAHRZ. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, GUARS is a kind of herb.

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).