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

LITHO

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈlɪθə/

Adjective

Clipping of lithographic.

“litho paper”

Noun

Clipping of lithograph.

Verb

To lithograph.

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 LITHO performs as a guess

Wordle accepts LITHO 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 83.2% of games, misses completely in 16.8%, and leaves about 158 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,273 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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 LITHO 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.

4.73 Entropy (bits)
158 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 67% of evaluated openers
1.22 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How LITHO 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#3,273 Rank among openers
Opening with LITHO solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.64 average. It ranks #3,273 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
56
3 guesses
958
4 guesses
1,134
5 guesses
186
6 guesses
20
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:
ILOT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
18%
All gray
17%

Feedback distribution

LITHO can come back 98 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

400 answers
246 answers
206 answers
173 answers
158 answers
102 answers
93 answers
80 answers
78 answers
74 answers
70 answers
50 answers
47 answers
41 answers
33 answers
32 answers
32 answers
27 answers
27 answers
26 answers
26 answers
21 answers
21 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

L1I1T1H4O1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing LITHO

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing LITHO:

17% chance
Suggested:
RANSE
10% chance
Suggested:
CRANE
9% chance
Suggested:
CARLE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.8%
RANSE 5.96 bits
10.4%
CRANE 5.37 bits
8.7%
CARLE 5.16 bits
7.3%
REAST 5.60 bits
6.7%
CRANE 5.41 bits
4.3%
CARSE 5.64 bits
3.9%
COOER 4.27 bits
3.4%
DANSE 4.67 bits
3.3%
SLADE 4.61 bits
3.1%
REAST 4.73 bits

Research on LITHO

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

Optimal play

Opening with LITHO, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #4,477 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 LITHO can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.69, 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 LEETHOH. Estimated pronunciation

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

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
LITHO 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 frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).