HANDS
HANDS is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
As an opener, it rules out about 92.7% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /hæn(d)z/[hɛəndz][heəndz]
- Noun
-
plural of hand
- Verb
-
third-person singular simple present indicative of hand
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
NoThe solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.
Past Wordle answer
Not used yetNo past answer date found.
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How HANDS performs as a guess
Wordle accepts HANDS 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 80.9% of games, misses completely in 19.1%, and leaves about 174 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,286 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe HANDS 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How HANDS 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Feedback distribution
HANDS can come back 86 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for HANDS; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing HANDS
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to HANDS.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing HANDS:
Research on HANDS
Game-tree analysis and word research for HANDS, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with HANDS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #3,901 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 HANDS can 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, HANDS is a kind of keeping or force.
Synonyms men custody workforce manpower
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- HANDS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 145 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 4, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 96 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.2 of 5).
In a sentence
You are in his hands.
What is in your hands?
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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).