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

KARNS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of karn

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

How it sounds

One syllable Say it KAHRNZ.

Rhymes with BARNS YARNS CARNS DARNS

Use KARNS 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

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 KARNS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts KARNS 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 83.4% of games, misses completely in 16.6%, and leaves about 151 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,392 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 KARNS 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.

4.82 Entropy (bits)
151 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.7% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How KARNS 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
99.92% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#3,392 Rank among openers
Opening with KARNS left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.64 average. It ranks #3,392 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
38
3 guesses
981
4 guesses
1,127
5 guesses
194
6 guesses
12

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ANRS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
28%
All gray
17%

Feedback distribution

KARNS can come back 82 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

396 answers
251 answers
176 answers
169 answers
132 answers
128 answers
103 answers
87 answers
64 answers
53 answers
51 answers
46 answers
41 answers
40 answers
38 answers
38 answers
32 answers
31 answers
30 answers
29 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
24 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

K5A1R1N1S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing KARNS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing KARNS:

17% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
11% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
7% chance
Suggested:
STILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.6% →
TOILE 6.12 bits
10.5% →
TOILE 5.23 bits
7.4% →
STILE 5.47 bits
7.1% →
ALATE 5.44 bits
5.5% →
TOILE 5.07 bits
5.4% →
TRACE 4.82 bits
4.3% →
BLITE 4.71 bits
3.6% →
STALE 4.96 bits
2.7% →
CLOTE 4.46 bits
2.2% →
SHOTE 4.59 bits

Research on KARNS

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

Optimal play

Opening with KARNS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #3,878 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 KARNS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.69, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
KARNS 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).