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

HILUS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈhaɪ.ləs/

Noun

A hilum.

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

Use HILUS 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 HILUS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HILUS 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 78.7% of games, misses completely in 21.3%, and leaves about 191 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,436 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 HILUS 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.

4.56 Entropy (bits)
191 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HILUS 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
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#4,436 Rank among openers
Opening with HILUS left 1 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 #4,436 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
42
3 guesses
964
4 guesses
1,116
5 guesses
213
6 guesses
18

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ILSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
20%
All gray
21%

Feedback distribution

HILUS can come back 81 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

508 answers
230 answers
206 answers
182 answers
135 answers
97 answers
95 answers
66 answers
64 answers
62 answers
55 answers
53 answers
50 answers
47 answers
34 answers
34 answers
30 answers
29 answers
29 answers
28 answers
27 answers
24 answers
20 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4I1L1U1S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing HILUS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HILUS:

21% chance
Suggested:
TRONE
10% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
9% chance
Suggested:
PEART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.3% →
TRONE 5.97 bits
9.6% →
ROATE 5.19 bits
8.6% →
PEART 5.88 bits
7.6% →
TRONE 5.62 bits
5.7% →
GRONE 5.07 bits
4.1% →
RONTE 4.83 bits
4.0% →
CARTE 5.70 bits
2.8% →
CRANE 4.49 bits
2.7% →
STANE 4.58 bits
2.6% →
SAUNT 4.42 bits

Research on HILUS

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

Optimal play

Opening with HILUS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,154 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.84 guesses at best and is rank #2,591 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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).