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

ORALS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 96.3% of possible answers.

Open Solver with ORALS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of oral

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 ORALS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ORALS 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 89.8% of games, misses completely in 10.2%, and leaves about 88 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,912 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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.

O___S O in the 1st position and S in the 5th position O__L_ O in the 1st position and L in the 4th position _R__S R in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe ORALS 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.

5.35 Entropy (bits)
88 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
96.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 96% of evaluated openers
0.60 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ORALS 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#2,912 Rank among openers
Opening with ORALS left 3 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 3.64 average. It ranks #2,912 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
75
3 guesses
921
4 guesses
1,157
5 guesses
181
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:
ALORS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
90%
Green tile
30%
All gray
10%

Feedback distribution

ORALS can come back 106 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

241 answers
144 answers
138 answers
125 answers
124 answers
108 answers
87 answers
86 answers
82 answers
77 answers
77 answers
56 answers
56 answers
56 answers
55 answers
50 answers
50 answers
47 answers
46 answers
44 answers
40 answers
30 answers
29 answers
29 answers
28 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

O1R1A1L1S1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 6 points

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

Try next

TINGE CADET CONTE RIVET SIENT CLINE

Strategy after playing ORALS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ORALS:

10% chance
Suggested:
TINGE
6% chance
Suggested:
CADET
6% chance
Suggested:
CONTE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

10.2% →
TINGE 5.90 bits
6.1% →
CADET 4.87 bits
5.8% →
CONTE 5.02 bits
5.3% →
RIVET 4.73 bits
5.2% →
SIENT 5.42 bits
4.5% →
CLINE 4.81 bits
3.7% →
RONTE 4.35 bits
3.6% →
TARRE 4.37 bits
3.5% →
TRICE 4.58 bits
3.2% →
NATAL 4.41 bits

Research on ORALS

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

Optimal play

Opening with ORALS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #1,995 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.78 guesses at best and is rank #864 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.66, 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 AWRUHLZ. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, ORALS is a kind of test.

Synonyms viva unwritten spoken

Opposites anal written

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
ORALS sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).