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

NOWTS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 90.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of nowt

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 NOWTS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts NOWTS 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 75.8% of games, misses completely in 24.2%, and leaves about 221 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,086 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.65 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 NOWTS 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.

4.42 Entropy (bits)
221 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 46% of evaluated openers
1.53 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How NOWTS 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.

3.65 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#4,086 Rank among openers
Opening with NOWTS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.67 means those games clustered within about 0.67 of a guess of the 3.65 average. It ranks #4,086 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
46
3 guesses
925
4 guesses
1,190
5 guesses
182
6 guesses
11
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
1 vowels
Common:
NOST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
20%
All gray
24%

Feedback distribution

NOWTS can come back 79 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

575 answers
219 answers
201 answers
198 answers
140 answers
111 answers
88 answers
62 answers
58 answers
55 answers
54 answers
51 answers
41 answers
36 answers
32 answers
29 answers
26 answers
26 answers
24 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
18 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

N1O1W4T1S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing NOWTS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing NOWTS:

24% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
9% chance
Suggested:
PARLE
8% chance
Suggested:
LAIDE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

24.2%
RAILE 6.30 bits
9.2%
PARLE 5.66 bits
8.5%
LAIDE 5.49 bits
8.3%
CARET 5.54 bits
5.9%
CADRE 5.16 bits
4.7%
CARLE 4.90 bits
3.7%
SERAL 4.94 bits
2.6%
MAIRE 4.62 bits
2.4%
RAILE 4.69 bits
2.3%
TIARE 4.57 bits

Research on NOWTS

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

Optimal play

Opening with NOWTS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,296 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.82 guesses at best and is rank #1,954 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.65, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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 NOWTS. Estimated pronunciation

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

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.