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

LOCHS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of loch

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

Use LOCHS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 91.3% 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 LOCHS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts LOCHS 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 77.9% of games, misses completely in 22.1%, and leaves about 207 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,143 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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 LOCHS 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.

4.49 Entropy (bits)
207 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.3% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How LOCHS 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.

3.66 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#4,143 Rank among openers
Opening with LOCHS left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.66 average. It ranks #4,143 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
53
3 guesses
935
4 guesses
1,148
5 guesses
201
6 guesses
15

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
LOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
19%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

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

526 answers
264 answers
242 answers
171 answers
108 answers
105 answers
82 answers
71 answers
64 answers
59 answers
53 answers
48 answers
43 answers
41 answers
38 answers
37 answers
36 answers
24 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
18 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

L1O1C3H4S1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing LOCHS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing LOCHS:

22% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
11% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
10% chance
Suggested:
TIARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.1% →
TIARE 6.16 bits
11.1% →
RAILE 5.48 bits
10.2% →
TIARE 5.81 bits
7.2% →
TRINE 5.42 bits
4.5% →
TIARE 5.37 bits
4.4% →
DRONE 4.52 bits
3.4% →
TIARE 5.52 bits
3.0% →
SALLE 4.57 bits
2.7% →
TIARE 4.68 bits
2.5% →
STRAE 4.73 bits

Research on LOCHS

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

Optimal play

Opening with LOCHS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,486 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.81 guesses at best and is rank #1,643 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, 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.

Familiarity and learning

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