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

LOTUS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈloʊtəs//ˈləʊtəs/

Noun

Any of genus Nelumbo of aquatic plants in the family Nelumbonaceae.

Noun

A water lily (Nymphaea), especially those of Egypt or India.

Alternative forms: lotos

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 LOTUS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts LOTUS 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 82.1% of games, misses completely in 17.9%, and leaves about 151 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,246 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 LOTUS 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.

4.87 Entropy (bits)
151 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 76% of evaluated openers
1.08 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How LOTUS 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
#3,246 Rank among openers
Opening with LOTUS 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 #3,246 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
53
3 guesses
971
4 guesses
1,114
5 guesses
200
6 guesses
16
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:
LOSTU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
23%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

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

424 answers
212 answers
169 answers
160 answers
151 answers
99 answers
98 answers
95 answers
60 answers
53 answers
51 answers
51 answers
46 answers
46 answers
39 answers
38 answers
36 answers
35 answers
34 answers
28 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

L1O1T1U1S1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing LOTUS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing LOTUS:

18% chance
Suggested:
RAINE
9% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
7% chance
Suggested:
TREAT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.9%
RAINE 6.05 bits
8.9%
RAILE 5.37 bits
7.1%
TREAT 5.55 bits
6.7%
SPAER 5.58 bits
6.4%
CRANE 5.54 bits
4.2%
RANCE 4.69 bits
4.1%
CARNE 4.74 bits
4.0%
PEART 4.81 bits
2.5%
SHALE 4.46 bits
2.2%
SAYNE 4.08 bits

Research on LOTUS

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

Optimal play

Opening with LOTUS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,219 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.78 guesses at best and is rank #864 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, 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

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

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
LOTUS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 4 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.9 of 5).

In a sentence

Can you sit in the Lotus position?
© tatoeba.org contributor Scott (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Tom sat in the lotus position.
© tatoeba.org contributor Hybrid (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).