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

OWIES

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of owie

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Use OWIES in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 93.8% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

How OWIES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts OWIES 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 88.8% of games, misses completely in 11.2%, and leaves about 148 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,180 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.74 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 OWIES 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.

4.73 Entropy (bits)
148 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.8% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How OWIES 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.

3.74 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#9,180 Rank among openers
Opening with OWIES left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.74 average. It ranks #9,180 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
66
3 guesses
775
4 guesses
1,224
5 guesses
270
6 guesses
17

Composition

5/5 unique
3 vowels
Common:
EIOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
89%
Green tile
28%
All gray
11%

Feedback distribution

OWIES can come back 86 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

310 answers
268 answers
259 answers
158 answers
156 answers
132 answers
110 answers
86 answers
76 answers
71 answers
63 answers
49 answers
48 answers
41 answers
37 answers
37 answers
36 answers
35 answers
35 answers
35 answers
22 answers
22 answers
16 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

O1W4I1E1S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing OWIES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing OWIES:

13% chance
Suggested:
LEARE
11% chance
Suggested:
TRULY
11% chance
Suggested:
TONAL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.0% →
LEARE 5.56 bits
11.2% →
TRULY 5.39 bits
10.9% →
TONAL 5.01 bits
6.6% →
SLART 5.24 bits
6.5% →
TRAIN 4.95 bits
5.5% →
LATER 4.59 bits
4.6% →
SLART 4.98 bits
3.6% →
CLARY 4.67 bits
3.2% →
DRONE 4.41 bits
3.0% →
ROOST 4.47 bits

Research on OWIES

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

Optimal play

Opening with OWIES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,107 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 OWIES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.74, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT).