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

LENSE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.8% of possible answers.

Open Solver with LENSE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Alternative spelling of lens.

Verb

Alternative spelling of lens.

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 LENSE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts LENSE 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 82.3% of games, misses completely in 17.7%, and leaves about 146 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,963 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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___E L in the 1st position and E in the 5th position L__S_ L in the 1st position and S in the 4th position _E__E E in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe LENSE 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.

4.95 Entropy (bits)
146 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 81% of evaluated openers
1.00 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How LENSE 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#5,963 Rank among openers
Opening with LENSE left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.68 average. It ranks #5,963 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
60
3 guesses
883
4 guesses
1,165
5 guesses
226
6 guesses
18
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:
ELNS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
38%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

LENSE can come back 95 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

421 answers
205 answers
152 answers
152 answers
147 answers
133 answers
78 answers
72 answers
66 answers
62 answers
53 answers
51 answers
50 answers
49 answers
47 answers
39 answers
36 answers
30 answers
29 answers
28 answers
28 answers
23 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

L1E1N1S1E1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Try next

RATIO ATOLL STAIR OATER TRAIN GRATE

Strategy after playing LENSE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing LENSE:

18% chance
Suggested:
RATIO
9% chance
Suggested:
ATOLL
6% chance
Suggested:
STAIR

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.7% →
RATIO 5.76 bits
8.6% →
ATOLL 5.03 bits
6.4% →
STAIR 5.12 bits
6.4% →
OATER 4.80 bits
6.2% →
TRAIN 5.35 bits
5.6% →
GRATE 4.54 bits
3.3% →
TEARY 4.59 bits
3.0% →
TIARE 4.42 bits
2.8% →
SAUCY 3.87 bits
2.6% →
ALTER 4.37 bits

Research on LENSE

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

Optimal play

Opening with LENSE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,740 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.83 guesses at best and is rank #2,333 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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 LEHNS. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, LENSE is a kind of device.

Synonyms lens

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
LENSE 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.

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).