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

PIKES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.0% of possible answers.

Open Solver with PIKES Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of pike

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 PIKES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PIKES 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 80.9% of games, misses completely in 19.1%, and leaves about 190 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,644 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.73 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.

P___S P in the 1st position and S in the 5th position P__E_ P in the 1st position and E in the 4th position _I__S I in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position PI_ES P in the 1st position, I in the 2nd position, E in the 4th position, and S in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe PIKES 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.

4.54 Entropy (bits)
190 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 55% of evaluated openers
1.40 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PIKES 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.

3.73 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#8,644 Rank among openers
Opening with PIKES solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.73 average. It ranks #8,644 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
50
3 guesses
800
4 guesses
1,249
5 guesses
239
6 guesses
16
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:
EIS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
81%
Green tile
27%
All gray
19%

Feedback distribution

PIKES can come back 82 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

453 answers
332 answers
174 answers
171 answers
166 answers
116 answers
87 answers
86 answers
59 answers
49 answers
42 answers
36 answers
36 answers
35 answers
31 answers
30 answers
28 answers
28 answers
27 answers
25 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3I1K5E1S1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Try next

TALON LEARE TRAIN OATER SAULT SHART

Strategy after playing PIKES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PIKES:

19% chance
Suggested:
TALON
14% chance
Suggested:
LEARE
7% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.1% →
TALON 5.80 bits
14.0% →
LEARE 5.52 bits
7.3% →
TRAIN 5.38 bits
7.2% →
OATER 4.33 bits
7.0% →
SAULT 5.34 bits
4.9% →
SHART 4.97 bits
3.7% →
DIRTY 3.93 bits
3.6% →
TRIDE 4.29 bits
2.5% →
CLARY 5.05 bits
2.1% →
SLANT 4.50 bits

Research on PIKES

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

Optimal play

Opening with PIKES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,835 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 PIKES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.73; proven optimal play reaches 3.71. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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

One syllable Say it PYKS.

Rhymes with LIKES BIKES YIKES HIKES SYKES

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, PIKES is a kind of highway or seafood.

Synonyms freeway motorway expressway

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
PIKES 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.0 of 5).

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).