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

PLIES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.8% of possible answers.

Open Solver with PLIES Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /plaɪz/

Noun

plural of ply

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of ply

Noun

plural of plie

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 PLIES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PLIES 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 85.3% of games, misses completely in 14.7%, and leaves about 124 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,140 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.60 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 _L__S L in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe PLIES 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.

5.21 Entropy (bits)
124 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 92% of evaluated openers
0.74 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PLIES 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.

3.60 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#1,140 Rank among openers
Opening with PLIES solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.60 average. It ranks #1,140 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
83
3 guesses
976
4 guesses
1,105
5 guesses
174
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:
EILS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
85%
Green tile
36%
All gray
15%

Feedback distribution

PLIES can come back 121 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

348 answers
247 answers
147 answers
133 answers
131 answers
107 answers
100 answers
79 answers
58 answers
57 answers
47 answers
45 answers
44 answers
42 answers
37 answers
34 answers
33 answers
33 answers
32 answers
32 answers
31 answers
27 answers
25 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3L1I1E1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

COURT TRADE SHART ANTIC OATER LOYAL

Strategy after playing PLIES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PLIES:

15% chance
Suggested:
COURT
10% chance
Suggested:
TRADE
6% chance
Suggested:
SHART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.7% →
COURT 5.83 bits
10.4% →
TRADE 5.59 bits
6.2% →
SHART 5.27 bits
5.6% →
ANTIC 5.11 bits
5.5% →
OATER 4.39 bits
4.5% →
LOYAL 4.90 bits
4.2% →
SHART 4.97 bits
3.3% →
LADLE 4.36 bits
2.4% →
TRONE 4.18 bits
2.4% →
CANOE 3.99 bits

Research on PLIES

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

Optimal play

Opening with PLIES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.62 guesses and ranks #561 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.77 guesses at best and is rank #633 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, 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

One syllable Say it PLYZ.

Rhymes with PRIZE TRIES FLIES ARISE CRIES

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, PLIES is a kind of strand or bed.

Synonyms run provide supply CATER

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
PLIES 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.

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).