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

HYLES

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

No dictionary definition for HYLES is recorded in our sourced data.

Meaning and pronunciation

We do not have a sourced definition for this word yet.

Check HYLES on Wiktionary or report a missing entry.

Use HYLES in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 93.7% 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

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 HYLES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HYLES 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 85.9% of games, misses completely in 14.1%, and leaves about 149 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,635 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.73 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 HYLES 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.

4.70 Entropy (bits)
149 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.7% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HYLES 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.

3.73 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#8,635 Rank among openers
Opening with HYLES left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.73 average. It ranks #8,635 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
55
3 guesses
816
4 guesses
1,209
5 guesses
249
6 guesses
24

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ELS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
23%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

HYLES can come back 86 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

335 answers
281 answers
175 answers
160 answers
149 answers
145 answers
127 answers
115 answers
111 answers
59 answers
53 answers
46 answers
45 answers
43 answers
42 answers
39 answers
38 answers
25 answers
24 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4Y4L1E1S1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing HYLES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HYLES:

14% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
12% chance
Suggested:
IRADE
7% chance
Suggested:
FINAL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.1%
TRAIN 6.23 bits
11.8%
IRADE 5.19 bits
7.4%
FINAL 4.89 bits
6.7%
OATER 4.10 bits
6.3%
STAIN 5.22 bits
6.1%
DAIRY 4.27 bits
5.3%
STAIR 4.78 bits
4.8%
BLATE 4.50 bits
4.7%
TORCH 5.15 bits
2.5%
ARENE 3.44 bits

Research on HYLES

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

Optimal play

Opening with HYLES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,176 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 HYLES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.73; proven optimal play reaches 3.72. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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.

Familiarity and learning

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