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

KIDDO

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

As an opener, it rules out about 82.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈkɪdoʊ/

Noun

A close friend; especially used as a form of address.

“Okay, kiddo, I gotta run.”

Noun

A child.

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 KIDDO performs as a guess

Wordle accepts KIDDO 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 64.8% of games, misses completely in 35.2%, and leaves about 427 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,669 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.88 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 KIDDO 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.

3.38 Entropy (bits)
427 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
82.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 5% of evaluated openers
2.57 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How KIDDO 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.

3.88 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#13,669 Rank among openers
Opening with KIDDO 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 3.88 average. It ranks #13,669 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
34
3 guesses
615
4 guesses
1,326
5 guesses
357
6 guesses
19
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
IO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
65%
Green tile
17%
All gray
35%

Feedback distribution

KIDDO can come back 56 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

836 answers
429 answers
280 answers
139 answers
107 answers
85 answers
59 answers
53 answers
52 answers
33 answers
32 answers
32 answers
30 answers
26 answers
22 answers
13 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
4 answers
4 answers
4 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

K5I1D2D2O1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing KIDDO

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing KIDDO:

35% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
18% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
12% chance
Suggested:
STANE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

35.2%
TARSE 6.36 bits
18.1%
TARSE 5.37 bits
11.8%
STANE 5.47 bits
5.9%
SALET 4.68 bits
4.5%
SLACK 5.08 bits
3.6%
TREAD 5.12 bits
2.5%
DRONE 4.25 bits
2.2%
POINT 4.50 bits
2.2%
ARIEL 4.62 bits
1.4%
CRUSE 3.90 bits

Research on KIDDO

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

Optimal play

Opening with KIDDO, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.87 guesses and ranks #13,252 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 KIDDO can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.88; proven optimal play reaches 3.87. 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.

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it KIHDOH. Estimated pronunciation

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

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
KIDDO sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 2 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.5 of 5).

In a sentence

You need to get enough sleep, kiddo.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (CC BY 2.0 FR)
May God accompany you, kiddo!
© tatoeba.org contributor anzart (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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 frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).