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

NOVAS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with NOVAS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of nova

Alternative forms: novae

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 NOVAS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts NOVAS 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 81.4% of games, misses completely in 18.6%, and leaves about 187 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,430 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

N___S N in the 1st position and S in the 5th position N__A_ N in the 1st position and A in the 4th position _O__S O in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in NOVAS.

First-turn measures

All four describe NOVAS 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.

4.48 Entropy (bits)
187 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 50% of evaluated openers
1.47 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How NOVAS 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
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#8,430 Rank among openers
Opening with NOVAS left 2 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 3.73 average. It ranks #8,430 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
59
3 guesses
782
4 guesses
1,266
5 guesses
228
6 guesses
17
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:
ANOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
81%
Green tile
22%
All gray
19%

Feedback distribution

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

442 answers
319 answers
189 answers
150 answers
139 answers
129 answers
127 answers
101 answers
75 answers
59 answers
56 answers
51 answers
50 answers
42 answers
38 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
27 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
11 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

N1O1V4A1S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Try next

TRIED CARLE SLIER TRICE THALE CLOTE

Strategy after playing NOVAS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing NOVAS:

19% chance
Suggested:
TRIED
13% chance
Suggested:
CARLE
8% chance
Suggested:
SLIER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.6% →
TRIED 6.01 bits
13.4% →
CARLE 5.43 bits
8.0% →
SLIER 5.30 bits
6.3% →
TRICE 5.22 bits
5.9% →
THALE 4.94 bits
5.4% →
TRICE 5.05 bits
5.3% →
CLOTE 4.27 bits
4.3% →
TRINE 4.63 bits
3.2% →
DECAL 4.48 bits
2.5% →
CRUET 3.94 bits

Research on NOVAS

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

Optimal play

Opening with NOVAS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.76 guesses and ranks #8,561 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.88 guesses at best and is rank #3,785 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, at or below the proven-optimal 3.76, 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 NOHVUHZ.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, NOVAS is a kind of star.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
NOVAS 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.2 of 5).

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).