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

ITEMS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈaɪ.təmz/[ˈaɪ̯.ɾəmz][ˈaɪ̯.ɾm̩z]

Noun

plural of item

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of item

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 ITEMS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ITEMS 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 85.6% of games, misses completely in 14.4%, and leaves about 157 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,903 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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.

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

First-turn measures

All four describe ITEMS 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.

4.71 Entropy (bits)
157 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 65% of evaluated openers
1.24 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ITEMS 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#5,903 Rank among openers
Opening with ITEMS left 3 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 3.68 average. It ranks #5,903 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
65
3 guesses
842
4 guesses
1,236
5 guesses
187
6 guesses
21
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:
EIST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
16%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

ITEMS can come back 87 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

343 answers
341 answers
174 answers
145 answers
138 answers
111 answers
107 answers
98 answers
94 answers
66 answers
60 answers
54 answers
51 answers
45 answers
34 answers
33 answers
33 answers
30 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
23 answers
20 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

I1T1E1M3S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing ITEMS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ITEMS:

14% chance
Suggested:
LAREE
14% chance
Suggested:
CRONY
7% chance
Suggested:
CLARY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.4%
LAREE 5.40 bits
14.4%
CRONY 5.81 bits
7.3%
CLARY 5.06 bits
6.1%
TROUT 5.25 bits
5.8%
SNARL 5.01 bits
4.7%
RIDGE 4.64 bits
4.5%
LEARE 5.00 bits
4.1%
PARSE 4.79 bits
4.0%
TAINT 4.42 bits
2.8%
MOLAR 4.96 bits

Research on ITEMS

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

Optimal play

Opening with ITEMS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #6,921 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 ITEMS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.73, 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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it YTUHMZ.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, ITEMS is a kind of part or portion.

Synonyms POINT particular detail TOKEN

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
ITEMS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 60 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.8 of 5).

In a sentence

I need the following items.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
How would you like these items?
© tatoeba.org contributor JimBreen (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).