5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess B tier for first-turn info

PILOT

Yes, PILOT was the Wordle answer on October 17, 2021 (Wordle #120).

As an opener, it rules out about 93.9% of possible answers.

Open Solver with PILOT Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈpaɪ̯.lət/[ˈpʰaɪ̯.lət]/ˈpɑɪ̯.lət/

Noun

A person who steers a ship, a helmsman.

Noun

A person who knows well the depths, shoals, and currents of a harbor or coastal area, who is hired by a vessel to help navigate the harbor or coast.

Adjective

Made or used as a test or demonstration of capability.

“The pilot plant showed the need for major process changes.”

Adjective

Used to control or activate another device.

Alternative forms: pylote, pylot

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: October 17, 2021 (#120).

See the full page for that puzzle: October 17, 2021 (#120).

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

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How verification and withdrawal work

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How PILOT performs as a guess

PILOT is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 82.6% of games, misses completely in 17.4%, and leaves about 145 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #214 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.57 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___T P in the 1st position and T in the 5th position P__O_ P in the 1st position and O in the 4th position _I__T I in the 2nd position and T in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe PILOT 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.

5.00 Entropy (bits)
145 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
93.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 83% of evaluated openers
0.95 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PILOT 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.

3.57 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#214 Rank among openers
Opening with PILOT left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.57 average. It ranks #214 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
64
3 guesses
1,057
4 guesses
1,071
5 guesses
147
6 guesses
13
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:
ILOT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
32%
All gray
17%

Example solver route

R O A T E
P U N C H
P I L O T

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches PILOT in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

PILOT can come back 110 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

412 answers
218 answers
185 answers
151 answers
146 answers
81 answers
77 answers
72 answers
71 answers
66 answers
57 answers
53 answers
50 answers
40 answers
38 answers
34 answers
32 answers
30 answers
27 answers
26 answers
26 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3I1L1O1T1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

SACRE CRONE RANSE CRANE TARTE CEASE

Strategy after playing PILOT

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PILOT:

17% chance
Suggested:
SACRE
9% chance
Suggested:
CRONE
8% chance
Suggested:
RANSE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.4% →
SACRE 6.10 bits
9.2% →
CRONE 5.32 bits
7.8% →
RANSE 5.25 bits
6.4% →
CRANE 5.49 bits
6.1% →
TARTE 5.67 bits
3.4% →
CEASE 4.93 bits
3.2% →
CLADE 4.31 bits
3.0% →
CLADE 4.46 bits
3.0% →
DANSE 4.74 bits
2.8% →
RUOTE 4.46 bits

Research on PILOT

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

Optimal play

Opening with PILOT, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.62 guesses and ranks #522 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.74 guesses at best and is rank #208 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.57, at or below the proven-optimal 3.62, 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 PYLUHT.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, PILOT is a kind of flyer or jack.

Synonyms original fly buffer navigate fender

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
PILOT sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 33 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A2); among the first words English learners study.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 7, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 92 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.8 of 5).

In a sentence

I want to be a pilot.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
What did the pilot say?
© tatoeba.org contributor Jop (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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).