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

OLDIE

OLDIE 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: /ˈəʊldi//ˈoʊldi/

Noun

Something or someone old.

Noun

A song or record from a previous era.

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 OLDIE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts OLDIE 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 88.4% of games, misses completely in 11.6%, and leaves about 117 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,560 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 OLDIE 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.

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

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How OLDIE 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
#2,560 Rank among openers
Opening with OLDIE 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 #2,560 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
77
3 guesses
926
4 guesses
1,157
5 guesses
178
6 guesses
15
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
3 vowels
Common:
EILO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
35%
All gray
12%

Feedback distribution

OLDIE can come back 112 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

275 answers
233 answers
231 answers
152 answers
136 answers
88 answers
83 answers
65 answers
64 answers
57 answers
55 answers
55 answers
50 answers
48 answers
47 answers
44 answers
44 answers
36 answers
35 answers
35 answers
31 answers
27 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

O1L1D2I1E1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing OLDIE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing OLDIE:

12% chance
Suggested:
SHART
10% chance
Suggested:
RESET
10% chance
Suggested:
ROOST

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

11.6%
SHART 5.93 bits
9.8%
RESET 5.50 bits
9.7%
ROOST 5.34 bits
6.4%
SHIRT 5.15 bits
5.7%
SHART 5.06 bits
3.7%
SERAL 4.42 bits
3.5%
SURLY 4.69 bits
2.7%
SAINT 4.29 bits
2.7%
ROAST 4.08 bits
2.4%
LOCAL 4.33 bits

Research on OLDIE

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

Optimal play

Opening with OLDIE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,296 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 OLDIE 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

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

Rhymes with MOLDY GOLDY

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, OLDIE is a kind of song.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
OLDIE 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.

In a sentence

The next song is an oldie but a goodie.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).