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

HOUTS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of hout

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 HOUTS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HOUTS 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 75.5% of games, misses completely in 24.5%, and leaves about 207 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,450 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 HOUTS 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.

4.69 Entropy (bits)
207 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 64% of evaluated openers
1.26 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HOUTS 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
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#3,450 Rank among openers
Opening with HOUTS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.64 average. It ranks #3,450 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
63
3 guesses
957
4 guesses
1,107
5 guesses
206
6 guesses
20
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

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
OSTU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
26%
All gray
24%

Feedback distribution

HOUTS can come back 108 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

581 answers
187 answers
169 answers
160 answers
127 answers
122 answers
88 answers
69 answers
54 answers
47 answers
46 answers
46 answers
42 answers
41 answers
33 answers
32 answers
27 answers
26 answers
26 answers
24 answers
23 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
17 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4O1U1T1S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing HOUTS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HOUTS:

24% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
8% chance
Suggested:
CRANE
7% chance
Suggested:
PARLE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

24.5%
RAILE 6.18 bits
7.9%
CRANE 5.35 bits
7.1%
PARLE 5.61 bits
6.7%
ARIEL 5.60 bits
5.3%
CARLE 4.67 bits
5.1%
RAILE 4.83 bits
3.7%
PEART 4.84 bits
2.9%
CARLE 5.23 bits
2.3%
SLIER 4.53 bits
2.0%
TRICE 4.52 bits

Research on HOUTS

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

Optimal play

Opening with HOUTS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,505 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.83 guesses at best and is rank #2,175 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 3.71, 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 HOWTS.

Rhymes with BOUTS TOUTS LOUTS POUTS

Familiarity and learning

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