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

HIGHS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 82.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of high

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of high

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 HIGHS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HIGHS 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 63.9% of games, misses completely in 36.1%, and leaves about 413 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,241 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.85 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 HIGHS 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.

3.46 Entropy (bits)
413 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
82.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 6% of evaluated openers
2.49 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HIGHS 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.

3.85 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#13,241 Rank among openers
Opening with HIGHS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.85 average. It ranks #13,241 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
31
3 guesses
651
4 guesses
1,327
5 guesses
319
6 guesses
26
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:
IS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
64%
Green tile
16%
All gray
36%

Feedback distribution

HIGHS can come back 55 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

856 answers
336 answers
257 answers
128 answers
127 answers
114 answers
89 answers
81 answers
45 answers
45 answers
39 answers
28 answers
27 answers
22 answers
17 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
11 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
4 answers
4 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4I1G2H4S1
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing HIGHS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HIGHS:

36% chance
Suggested:
ALTER
14% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
11% chance
Suggested:
CRANE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

36.1%
ALTER 6.08 bits
14.2%
ROATE 5.63 bits
10.8%
CRANE 5.39 bits
5.4%
DRONE 5.35 bits
5.3%
COATE 5.41 bits
4.8%
LATER 4.57 bits
3.7%
STILE 4.56 bits
3.4%
SLATE 4.75 bits
1.9%
GLARE 4.31 bits
1.9%
TEARY 4.84 bits

Research on HIGHS

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

Optimal play

Opening with HIGHS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.89 guesses and ranks #13,666 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 HIGHS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.85, at or below the proven-optimal 3.89, 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 HYZ.

Rhymes with PRIZE TRIES FLIES ARISE CRIES

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, HIGHS is a kind of level or atmosphere.

Synonyms heights eminent highschool mellow richly last

Opposites low SOBER inferior fragrant

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
HIGHS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 4 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.2 of 5).

In a sentence

In life there are highs, lows, and rock bottoms.
© tatoeba.org contributor terrywallwork (CC BY 2.0 FR)
There are highs and lows in life, said the elevator operator.
© tatoeba.org contributor Jillyappleseed (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).