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

HALMS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of halm

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Use HALMS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 92.0% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

How HALMS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HALMS 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 78.9% of games, misses completely in 21.1%, and leaves about 190 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,163 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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 HALMS 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.

4.61 Entropy (bits)
190 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HALMS 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#3,163 Rank among openers
Opening with HALMS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.64 average. It ranks #3,163 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
48
3 guesses
957
4 guesses
1,156
5 guesses
181
6 guesses
12

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ALS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
23%
All gray
21%

Feedback distribution

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

503 answers
221 answers
199 answers
191 answers
128 answers
128 answers
112 answers
82 answers
71 answers
51 answers
43 answers
42 answers
38 answers
36 answers
31 answers
29 answers
27 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
22 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4A1L1M3S1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing HALMS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HALMS:

21% chance
Suggested:
RIONE
9% chance
Suggested:
TRONE
8% chance
Suggested:
TRONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.1% →
RIONE 6.12 bits
9.3% →
TRONE 5.58 bits
8.3% →
TRONE 5.65 bits
8.0% →
NOIRE 5.09 bits
5.4% →
TRONE 4.59 bits
5.4% →
RONTE 4.91 bits
4.7% →
TRICE 5.47 bits
3.4% →
PEART 5.00 bits
3.0% →
MOIRE 5.03 bits
2.1% →
URITE 4.67 bits

Research on HALMS

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

Optimal play

Opening with HALMS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #4,436 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.79 guesses at best and is rank #1,142 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT).