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

RIMES

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of rime

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of rime

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

How it sounds

One syllable Say it RYMZ.

Rhymes with TIMES DIMES LIMES

Related meanings

Synonyms lip FROST RHYME brim

Use RIMES in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 95.1% 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 RIMES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts RIMES 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 87.8% of games, misses completely in 12.2%, and leaves about 118 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,236 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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 RIMES 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.

5.10 Entropy (bits)
118 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.1% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How RIMES 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#3,236 Rank among openers
Opening with RIMES left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.64 average. It ranks #3,236 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
77
3 guesses
918
4 guesses
1,145
5 guesses
199
6 guesses
14

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EIRS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
27%
All gray
12%

Feedback distribution

RIMES can come back 103 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

292 answers
225 answers
175 answers
160 answers
124 answers
120 answers
110 answers
95 answers
74 answers
72 answers
63 answers
59 answers
57 answers
56 answers
49 answers
32 answers
31 answers
29 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1I1M3E1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing RIMES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing RIMES:

12% chance
Suggested:
CLOUT
9% chance
Suggested:
DEALT
7% chance
Suggested:
ACORN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

12.2% →
CLOUT 5.70 bits
9.4% →
DEALT 5.51 bits
7.3% →
ACORN 4.95 bits
6.7% →
SLANT 5.28 bits
5.2% →
ANTIC 5.06 bits
5.0% →
TRACE 4.91 bits
4.6% →
SHALT 5.05 bits
4.0% →
OLATE 3.47 bits
3.1% →
PITHY 3.84 bits
3.0% →
EATEN 4.20 bits

Research on RIMES

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

Optimal play

Opening with RIMES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.65 guesses and ranks #1,829 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.79 guesses at best and is rank #1,238 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.65, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
RIMES 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).