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

LUTES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 95.1% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /luːts//l(j)uːts/

Noun

plural of lute

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of lute

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 LUTES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts LUTES 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 86.7% of games, misses completely in 13.3%, and leaves about 116 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,356 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.63 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 LUTES 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.

5.18 Entropy (bits)
116 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 91% of evaluated openers
0.77 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How LUTES 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.

3.63 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#2,356 Rank among openers
Opening with LUTES left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.63 average. It ranks #2,356 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
73
3 guesses
950
4 guesses
1,130
5 guesses
184
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:
ELSTU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
87%
Green tile
28%
All gray
13%

Feedback distribution

LUTES can come back 111 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

315 answers
230 answers
156 answers
129 answers
122 answers
109 answers
100 answers
88 answers
81 answers
80 answers
59 answers
50 answers
45 answers
44 answers
43 answers
37 answers
35 answers
32 answers
29 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
25 answers
22 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

L1U1T1E1S1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing LUTES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing LUTES:

13% chance
Suggested:
CAIRN
10% chance
Suggested:
CRANE
7% chance
Suggested:
ROANY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.3%
CAIRN 6.07 bits
9.7%
CRANE 5.41 bits
6.6%
ROANY 4.89 bits
5.4%
RAINY 4.33 bits
5.1%
TAROT 5.16 bits
4.6%
SNARY 4.90 bits
4.2%
BEARE 4.46 bits
3.7%
SONAR 4.52 bits
3.4%
TIARE 4.86 bits
3.4%
ROAST 4.63 bits

Research on LUTES

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

Optimal play

Opening with LUTES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,457 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 LUTES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.63, at or below the proven-optimal 3.64, 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

One syllable Say it LOOTS.

Rhymes with ROOTS BOOTS SUITS TOOTS HOOTS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, LUTES is a kind of stuff or instrument.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
LUTES 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 relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).