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

POLTS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.2% of possible answers.

Open Solver with POLTS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of polt

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 POLTS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts POLTS 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 81.0% of games, misses completely in 19.0%, and leaves about 162 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #606 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.59 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__T_ P in the 1st position and T in the 4th position _O__S O in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position PO_TS P in the 1st position, O in the 2nd position, T in the 4th position, and S in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe POLTS 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.

4.86 Entropy (bits)
162 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 75% of evaluated openers
1.09 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How POLTS 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.

3.59 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#606 Rank among openers
Opening with POLTS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.59 average. It ranks #606 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
69
3 guesses
1,011
4 guesses
1,106
5 guesses
158
6 guesses
10
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
1 vowels
Common:
LOST

Feedback chances

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

Feedback distribution

POLTS can come back 106 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

451 answers
220 answers
186 answers
166 answers
143 answers
111 answers
86 answers
57 answers
55 answers
50 answers
49 answers
48 answers
47 answers
47 answers
42 answers
41 answers
37 answers
36 answers
29 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
18 answers
17 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3O1L1T1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

RAINE CARET SNARE CRANE RANCE RAISE

Strategy after playing POLTS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing POLTS:

19% chance
Suggested:
RAINE
9% chance
Suggested:
RAINE
8% chance
Suggested:
CARET

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.0% →
RAINE 6.17 bits
9.3% →
RAINE 5.48 bits
7.8% →
CARET 5.47 bits
7.0% →
SNARE 5.38 bits
6.0% →
CRANE 5.53 bits
4.7% →
RANCE 4.72 bits
3.6% →
RAISE 4.77 bits
2.4% →
RAINY 4.62 bits
2.3% →
SHALE 4.39 bits
2.1% →
RAILE 4.54 bits

Research on POLTS

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

Optimal play

Opening with POLTS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,177 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.73 guesses at best and is rank #119 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, at or below the proven-optimal 3.64, 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 POHLTS. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.