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

LEDES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.8% of possible answers.

Open Solver with LEDES Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of lede

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 LEDES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts LEDES 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 78.8% of games, misses completely in 21.2%, and leaves about 195 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,172 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.71 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__E_ L in the 1st position and E in the 4th position _E__S E in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position LE_ES L in the 1st position, E in the 2nd position, E in the 4th position, and S in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe LEDES 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.

4.57 Entropy (bits)
195 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 56% of evaluated openers
1.38 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How LEDES 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.

3.71 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#7,172 Rank among openers
Opening with LEDES left 1 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 3.71 average. It ranks #7,172 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
57
3 guesses
845
4 guesses
1,199
5 guesses
238
6 guesses
14
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:
ELS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
29%
All gray
21%

Feedback distribution

LEDES can come back 88 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

503 answers
246 answers
215 answers
188 answers
117 answers
117 answers
105 answers
79 answers
72 answers
71 answers
38 answers
35 answers
31 answers
31 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
25 answers
22 answers
21 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

L1E1D2E1S1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Try next

TRAIN STAIR ALLOT ORATE ROANY DRAIN

Strategy after playing LEDES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing LEDES:

21% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
10% chance
Suggested:
STAIR
9% chance
Suggested:
ALLOT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.2% →
TRAIN 6.00 bits
10.4% →
STAIR 5.26 bits
9.1% →
ALLOT 5.05 bits
7.9% →
ORATE 5.19 bits
4.9% →
ROANY 4.24 bits
4.9% →
STAIR 4.67 bits
4.4% →
DRAIN 5.29 bits
3.3% →
BLATE 4.45 bits
3.0% →
STALL 4.38 bits
3.0% →
REACT 4.71 bits

Research on LEDES

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

Optimal play

Opening with LEDES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,748 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 LEDES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.71, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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 LEHDZ. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, LEDES is a kind of section.

Synonyms lead

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
LEDES sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

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).