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

LAIRS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 96.2% of possible answers.

Open Solver with LAIRS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of lair

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 LAIRS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts LAIRS 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 91.0% of games, misses completely in 9.0%, and leaves about 91 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,196 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.60 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

L___S L in the 1st position and S in the 5th position L__R_ L in the 1st position and R in the 4th position _A__S A in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in LAIRS.

First-turn measures

All four describe LAIRS 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.

5.38 Entropy (bits)
91 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
96.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 97% of evaluated openers
0.57 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How LAIRS 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.

3.60 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#1,196 Rank among openers
Opening with LAIRS left 2 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 3.60 average. It ranks #1,196 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
67
3 guesses
1,015
4 guesses
1,070
5 guesses
183
6 guesses
17
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:
AILRS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
91%
Green tile
34%
All gray
9%

Feedback distribution

LAIRS can come back 107 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

215 answers
214 answers
129 answers
127 answers
124 answers
100 answers
99 answers
95 answers
90 answers
77 answers
57 answers
55 answers
53 answers
51 answers
48 answers
45 answers
40 answers
39 answers
36 answers
34 answers
32 answers
31 answers
29 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
22 answers
22 answers
22 answers
20 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

L1A1I1R1S1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 6 points

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

Try next

CONTE SPENT BOULE CLOTE TONEY CRANE

Strategy after playing LAIRS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing LAIRS:

9% chance
Suggested:
CONTE
9% chance
Suggested:
CONTE
5% chance
Suggested:
SPENT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

9.1% →
CONTE 5.31 bits
9.0% →
CONTE 5.71 bits
5.4% →
SPENT 5.30 bits
5.3% →
BOULE 4.88 bits
5.2% →
CONTE 5.29 bits
4.2% →
CLOTE 4.53 bits
4.2% →
TONEY 4.63 bits
4.0% →
CONTE 5.11 bits
3.8% →
CRANE 4.30 bits
3.2% →
SHUTE 4.59 bits

Research on LAIRS

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

Optimal play

Opening with LAIRS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,394 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.75 guesses at best and is rank #387 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, at or below the proven-optimal 3.64, 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 LEHRZ. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, LAIRS is a kind of habitat.

Synonyms den

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
LAIRS sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.6 of 5).

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