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

ROADS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 95.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ɹoʊdz//ɹəʊdz/

Noun

plural of road

Noun

A roadstead.

“Hampton Roads”

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 ROADS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ROADS 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 87.1% of games, misses completely in 12.9%, and leaves about 114 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,800 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 ROADS 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.

5.13 Entropy (bits)
114 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 89% of evaluated openers
0.82 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ROADS 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.

3.62 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#1,800 Rank among openers
Opening with ROADS 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 3.62 average. It ranks #1,800 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
71
3 guesses
960
4 guesses
1,138
5 guesses
173
6 guesses
12
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:
AORS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
87%
Green tile
31%
All gray
13%

Feedback distribution

ROADS can come back 102 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

307 answers
208 answers
172 answers
158 answers
96 answers
88 answers
82 answers
79 answers
78 answers
75 answers
73 answers
66 answers
63 answers
63 answers
57 answers
52 answers
43 answers
38 answers
34 answers
32 answers
29 answers
28 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1O1A1D2S1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 6 points

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

Strategy after playing ROADS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ROADS:

13% chance
Suggested:
CLINE
9% chance
Suggested:
CLINE
7% chance
Suggested:
TRIER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

12.9%
CLINE 6.00 bits
8.8%
CLINE 5.21 bits
7.2%
TRIER 4.99 bits
6.7%
STILE 5.35 bits
4.0%
CLOTE 4.43 bits
3.7%
TARGE 4.37 bits
3.5%
CLINE 5.08 bits
3.3%
THALE 4.27 bits
3.3%
CLINE 4.92 bits
3.2%
TRINE 4.29 bits

Research on ROADS

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

Optimal play

Opening with ROADS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,135 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 ROADS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.66, 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 ROHDZ.

Rhymes with LOADS CODES MODES NODES TOADS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, ROADS is a kind of anchorage.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
ROADS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 35 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.2 of 5).

In a sentence

The two roads meet here.
© tatoeba.org contributor sundown (CC BY 2.0 FR)
The area has many roads to it.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).