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

HELVE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 88.0% of possible answers.

Open Solver with HELVE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /hɛlv/

Noun

The handle or haft of a tool or weapon.

Noun

A forge hammer lifted by a cam acting on the helve between the fulcrum and the head.

Verb

To furnish (an axe, etc.) with a helve.

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 HELVE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HELVE 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 71.4% of games, misses completely in 28.6%, and leaves about 286 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,789 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.78 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.

H___E H in the 1st position and E in the 5th position H__V_ H in the 1st position and V in the 4th position _E__E E in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe HELVE 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.

4.09 Entropy (bits)
286 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 27% of evaluated openers
1.86 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HELVE 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.

3.78 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#10,789 Rank among openers
Opening with HELVE solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.78 average. It ranks #10,789 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
51
3 guesses
757
4 guesses
1,224
5 guesses
306
6 guesses
16
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
2 vowels
Common:
EL

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
71%
Green tile
33%
All gray
29%

Feedback distribution

HELVE can come back 79 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

680 answers
255 answers
215 answers
206 answers
173 answers
91 answers
79 answers
65 answers
60 answers
36 answers
34 answers
33 answers
29 answers
29 answers
27 answers
24 answers
24 answers
24 answers
20 answers
20 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4E1L1V4E1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Try next

TRAIN COAST SONAR ROAST STAIR ALTER

Strategy after playing HELVE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HELVE:

29% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
11% chance
Suggested:
COAST
9% chance
Suggested:
SONAR

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

28.6% →
TRAIN 6.02 bits
10.7% →
COAST 4.98 bits
9.1% →
SONAR 5.16 bits
8.7% →
ROAST 5.12 bits
7.3% →
COAST 5.26 bits
3.8% →
STAIR 4.70 bits
3.3% →
ALTER 4.29 bits
2.7% →
SLANT 4.00 bits
2.5% →
SOILY 4.45 bits
1.5% →
ENTER 4.03 bits

Research on HELVE

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

Optimal play

Opening with HELVE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.81 guesses and ranks #11,319 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.96 guesses at best and is rank #5,465 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.78, at or below the proven-optimal 3.81, 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 HEHLV. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, HELVE is a kind of hold.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
HELVE sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).