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

KOELS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of koel

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 KOELS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts KOELS 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 86.6% of games, misses completely in 13.4%, and leaves about 151 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,159 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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 KOELS 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.

4.79 Entropy (bits)
151 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 71% of evaluated openers
1.16 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How KOELS 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.

3.69 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#6,159 Rank among openers
Opening with KOELS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.69 average. It ranks #6,159 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
59
3 guesses
868
4 guesses
1,195
5 guesses
212
6 guesses
20
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:
ELOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
87%
Green tile
27%
All gray
13%

Feedback distribution

KOELS can come back 86 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

359 answers
317 answers
150 answers
146 answers
130 answers
115 answers
114 answers
113 answers
64 answers
64 answers
49 answers
49 answers
45 answers
44 answers
39 answers
38 answers
35 answers
33 answers
33 answers
28 answers
28 answers
21 answers
21 answers
21 answers
21 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

K5O1E1L1S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing KOELS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing KOELS:

15% chance
Suggested:
REATE
13% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
6% chance
Suggested:
STAIR

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.1%
REATE 5.54 bits
13.4%
TRAIN 5.96 bits
6.3%
STAIR 5.34 bits
6.1%
APRON 5.10 bits
5.5%
REATE 4.89 bits
4.8%
REATE 4.92 bits
4.8%
NORTH 4.16 bits
4.8%
PLAIT 5.04 bits
2.7%
TRADE 4.67 bits
2.7%
DRONE 4.64 bits

Research on KOELS

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

Optimal play

Opening with KOELS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,273 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.84 guesses at best and is rank #2,502 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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 KOHLZ. Estimated pronunciation

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

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.