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

LISLE

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /laɪl/

Noun

A type of strong cotton thread, or a cloth woven from such thread.

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

Named after Lisle, France (now Lille), where it was first produced.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it LYUHL.

Rhymes with TRIAL

Use LISLE in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 93.2% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

How LISLE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts LISLE 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 82.8% of games, misses completely in 17.2%, and leaves about 161 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,684 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.73 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 LISLE 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.

4.77 Entropy (bits)
161 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.2% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How LISLE 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.

3.73 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#8,684 Rank among openers
Opening with LISLE left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.73 average. It ranks #8,684 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
58
3 guesses
815
4 guesses
1,198
5 guesses
255
6 guesses
25

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EILS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
36%
All gray
17%

Feedback distribution

LISLE can come back 90 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

409 answers
287 answers
176 answers
150 answers
148 answers
117 answers
88 answers
83 answers
78 answers
70 answers
53 answers
49 answers
49 answers
44 answers
42 answers
33 answers
31 answers
30 answers
27 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

L1I1S1L1E1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing LISLE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing LISLE:

17% chance
Suggested:
COURT
12% chance
Suggested:
OATER
7% chance
Suggested:
ROAST

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.2% →
COURT 5.81 bits
12.0% →
OATER 5.11 bits
7.4% →
ROAST 5.19 bits
6.3% →
TRAIN 5.46 bits
6.2% →
GRACE 4.53 bits
4.9% →
CAROL 4.87 bits
3.7% →
DECAL 4.35 bits
3.5% →
ROAST 4.48 bits
3.3% →
DIRTY 3.92 bits
2.9% →
STEER 4.72 bits

Research on LISLE

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

Optimal play

Opening with LISLE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,107 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 LISLE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
LISLE 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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).