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

OPENS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈoʊ.pənz//ˈəʊ.pənz/

Noun

plural of open

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of open

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 OPENS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts OPENS 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 86.8% of games, misses completely in 13.2%, and leaves about 158 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,506 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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 OPENS 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.

4.74 Entropy (bits)
158 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 68% of evaluated openers
1.21 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How OPENS 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.

3.66 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#4,506 Rank among openers
Opening with OPENS 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 3.66 average. It ranks #4,506 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
65
3 guesses
899
4 guesses
1,173
5 guesses
202
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
2 vowels
Common:
ENOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
87%
Green tile
20%
All gray
13%

Feedback distribution

OPENS can come back 94 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

365 answers
313 answers
227 answers
155 answers
97 answers
95 answers
90 answers
79 answers
74 answers
69 answers
67 answers
64 answers
62 answers
60 answers
35 answers
33 answers
30 answers
29 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
21 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

O1P3E1N1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing OPENS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing OPENS:

15% chance
Suggested:
REATE
13% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL
10% chance
Suggested:
MOLAR

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.4%
REATE 5.61 bits
13.2%
TRAIL 5.95 bits
9.6%
MOLAR 5.12 bits
6.5%
SHALT 5.35 bits
4.1%
STAIR 4.75 bits
4.0%
AINEE 4.62 bits
3.8%
LOVER 4.12 bits
3.3%
MANIC 4.72 bits
3.1%
ERECT 4.56 bits
2.9%
GIANT 4.31 bits

Research on OPENS

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

Optimal play

Opening with OPENS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,400 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.81 guesses at best and is rank #1,594 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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 OHPUHNZ.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, OPENS is a kind of country or outside.

Synonyms CLEAR subject opened surface spread capable

Opposites shut closed CLOSE fine

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
OPENS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 27 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.4 of 5).

In a sentence

That door opens to the outside.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (CC BY 2.0 FR)
The store opens at nine.
© tatoeba.org contributor frpzzd (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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).