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

PAHOS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of paho

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

Use PAHOS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 92.6% 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 PAHOS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PAHOS 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 81.5% of games, misses completely in 18.5%, and leaves about 176 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,812 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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 PAHOS 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.

4.63 Entropy (bits)
176 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.6% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PAHOS 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#5,812 Rank among openers
Opening with PAHOS 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 3.68 average. It ranks #5,812 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
58
3 guesses
884
4 guesses
1,176
5 guesses
217
6 guesses
18

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
24%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

PAHOS can come back 89 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

441 answers
264 answers
238 answers
158 answers
151 answers
102 answers
90 answers
72 answers
71 answers
54 answers
50 answers
47 answers
46 answers
44 answers
40 answers
39 answers
34 answers
33 answers
28 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3A1H4O1S1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing PAHOS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PAHOS:

18% chance
Suggested:
LINER
11% chance
Suggested:
LEARN
10% chance
Suggested:
RONTE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.5% →
LINER 5.93 bits
11.1% →
LEARN 5.41 bits
10.0% →
RONTE 5.16 bits
6.6% →
TRINE 4.72 bits
6.3% →
SIENT 5.44 bits
4.3% →
TRICE 5.37 bits
3.8% →
LEANT 4.74 bits
3.0% →
DROLE 4.30 bits
3.0% →
RONTE 4.70 bits
2.3% →
TRIDE 4.17 bits

Research on PAHOS

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

Optimal play

Opening with PAHOS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,871 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.84 guesses at best and is rank #2,663 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, 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.

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