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

LICIT

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈlɪs.ɪt/

Adjective

Not forbidden by formal or informal rules.

Adjective

Explicitly established or constituted by law.

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 LICIT performs as a guess

Wordle accepts LICIT 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 73.4% of games, misses completely in 26.6%, and leaves about 256 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,385 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe LICIT 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.

4.24 Entropy (bits)
256 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 35% of evaluated openers
1.71 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How LICIT 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
99.83% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#7,385 Rank among openers
Opening with LICIT left 4 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 3.71 average. It ranks #7,385 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
41
3 guesses
894
4 guesses
1,141
5 guesses
255
6 guesses
19
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:
ILT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
73%
Green tile
29%
All gray
27%

Feedback distribution

LICIT can come back 77 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

632 answers
273 answers
226 answers
167 answers
129 answers
102 answers
79 answers
56 answers
50 answers
49 answers
44 answers
43 answers
31 answers
31 answers
30 answers
30 answers
29 answers
27 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
20 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

L1I1C3I1T1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing LICIT

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing LICIT:

27% chance
Suggested:
SOARE
11% chance
Suggested:
SOARE
10% chance
Suggested:
SOARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

26.6%
SOARE 6.15 bits
11.5%
SOARE 5.25 bits
9.5%
SOARE 5.77 bits
7.0%
SOARE 5.83 bits
5.4%
SNARE 5.32 bits
4.3%
SNARE 5.24 bits
3.3%
SONDE 4.80 bits
2.4%
CLEAN 4.47 bits
2.1%
SLADE 4.29 bits
2.1%
SOARE 4.83 bits

Research on LICIT

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

Optimal play

Opening with LICIT, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,285 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.90 guesses at best and is rank #4,166 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.71, at or below the proven-optimal 3.77, 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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it LIHSUHT. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

Synonyms legitimate lawful LEGAL

Opposites illicit illegal

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
LICIT 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).