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

KELTS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of kelt

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 KELTS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts KELTS 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 84.4% of games, misses completely in 15.6%, and leaves about 149 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,691 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe KELTS 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.

4.77 Entropy (bits)
149 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 70% of evaluated openers
1.18 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How KELTS 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
100% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#5,691 Rank among openers
Opening with KELTS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.68 average. It ranks #5,691 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
57
3 guesses
853
4 guesses
1,240
5 guesses
192
6 guesses
12
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
1 vowels
Common:
ELST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
22%
All gray
16%

Feedback distribution

KELTS can come back 84 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

370 answers
287 answers
159 answers
154 answers
121 answers
117 answers
113 answers
93 answers
91 answers
83 answers
53 answers
45 answers
43 answers
42 answers
39 answers
35 answers
34 answers
33 answers
30 answers
25 answers
25 answers
24 answers
24 answers
22 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
13 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

K5E1L1T1S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing KELTS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing KELTS:

16% chance
Suggested:
ROANY
12% chance
Suggested:
IRONE
7% chance
Suggested:
RAINY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.6%
ROANY 5.78 bits
12.1%
IRONE 5.15 bits
6.7%
RAINY 4.90 bits
6.5%
TRAIN 5.28 bits
5.1%
SNARY 4.92 bits
4.9%
ALIEN 4.50 bits
4.8%
SPAER 4.77 bits
3.9%
RANCE 4.76 bits
3.8%
EATER 4.69 bits
3.5%
ROAST 4.65 bits

Research on KELTS

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

Optimal play

Opening with KELTS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #5,116 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.81 guesses at best and is rank #1,752 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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 KEHLTS. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, KELTS is a kind of european.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0).