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

ROBES

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ɹəʊbz//ɹoʊbz/

Noun

plural of robe

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

How it sounds

One syllable Say it ROHBZ.

Rhymes with LOBES JOBES

Related meanings

Synonyms hook gown vest soak CLOAK fleece

In a sentence

They put their robes on.
© tatoeba.org contributor CH (CC BY 2.0 FR)
They put on their robes.
© tatoeba.org contributor CH (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use ROBES in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 94.7% 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 ROBES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ROBES 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 86.4% of games, misses completely in 13.6%, and leaves about 126 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,663 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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 ROBES 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.

5.06 Entropy (bits)
126 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.7% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ROBES 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.

3.66 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#4,663 Rank among openers
Opening with ROBES solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.66 average. It ranks #4,663 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
76
3 guesses
889
4 guesses
1,155
5 guesses
218
6 guesses
16

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EORS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
29%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

ROBES can come back 105 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

324 answers
246 answers
178 answers
141 answers
116 answers
111 answers
105 answers
99 answers
86 answers
80 answers
66 answers
53 answers
48 answers
45 answers
35 answers
34 answers
31 answers
28 answers
28 answers
25 answers
25 answers
23 answers
22 answers
20 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1O1B3E1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing ROBES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ROBES:

14% chance
Suggested:
PAINT
10% chance
Suggested:
LIANE
7% chance
Suggested:
SAULT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.6% →
PAINT 5.74 bits
10.3% →
LIANE 5.39 bits
7.5% →
SAULT 5.23 bits
5.9% →
TRAIN 5.10 bits
4.9% →
SLANT 4.95 bits
4.7% →
TRACE 4.81 bits
4.4% →
TODAY 3.93 bits
4.2% →
IRATE 3.32 bits
3.6% →
TALON 4.94 bits
3.4% →
ACORN 4.22 bits

Research on ROBES

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

Optimal play

Opening with ROBES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.65 guesses and ranks #1,648 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 ROBES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66; proven optimal play reaches 3.65. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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
ROBES sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 2 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.1 of 5).

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).