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

KINGS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kɪŋz/

Noun

plural of king

Noun

A pair of kings (playing cards).

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of king

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

Etymology

From Middle English Kinges; reference to the contents of the book, a chronicle of the Kings of Israel.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it KIHNGZ.

Rhymes with WINGS RINGS SINGS PINGS DINGS

Related meanings

Synonyms POWER rex BARON tycoon MOGUL magnate

Opposites QUEEN

In a sentence

Do you know any kings?
© tatoeba.org contributor LB (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Gold is the king of kings.
© tatoeba.org contributor Scott (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use KINGS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 86.9% 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.

KINGS in Connections

2 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.

How KINGS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts KINGS 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 69.4% of games, misses completely in 30.6%, and leaves about 311 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,574 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 KINGS 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.

4.03 Entropy (bits)
311 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
86.9% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How KINGS 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
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#8,574 Rank among openers
Opening with KINGS left 1 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 3.73 average. It ranks #8,574 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
37
3 guesses
821
4 guesses
1,252
5 guesses
223
6 guesses
20

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
INS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
69%
Green tile
18%
All gray
31%

Feedback distribution

KINGS can come back 71 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

729 answers
324 answers
195 answers
144 answers
98 answers
90 answers
68 answers
66 answers
65 answers
65 answers
50 answers
39 answers
37 answers
34 answers
25 answers
25 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
20 answers
17 answers
15 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

K5I1N1G2S1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing KINGS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing KINGS:

31% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
14% chance
Suggested:
STARE
8% chance
Suggested:
CRATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

30.6% →
ROATE 6.18 bits
13.6% →
STARE 5.77 bits
8.2% →
CRATE 5.54 bits
6.0% →
ROATE 5.22 bits
4.1% →
LATER 4.68 bits
3.8% →
GLARE 5.34 bits
2.9% →
CARLE 5.18 bits
2.8% →
PALET 4.73 bits
2.7% →
HAOLE 4.63 bits
2.7% →
ORATE 4.69 bits

Research on KINGS

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

Optimal play

Opening with KINGS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.76 guesses and ranks #8,607 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.89 guesses at best and is rank #3,942 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, at or below the proven-optimal 3.76, 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
KINGS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 26 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 (3.7 of 5).

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).