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

SKEPS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of skep

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of skep

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

Use SKEPS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 83.8% 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 SKEPS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SKEPS 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 70.0% of games, misses completely in 30.0%, and leaves about 386 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,706 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.88 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 SKEPS 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.

3.63 Entropy (bits)
386 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
83.8% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SKEPS 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.

3.88 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#13,706 Rank among openers
Opening with SKEPS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.88 average. It ranks #13,706 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
32
3 guesses
645
4 guesses
1,278
5 guesses
371
6 guesses
27

Composition

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ES

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
70%
Green tile
24%
All gray
30%

Feedback distribution

SKEPS can come back 56 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

715 answers
582 answers
135 answers
96 answers
83 answers
78 answers
77 answers
77 answers
76 answers
69 answers
35 answers
31 answers
30 answers
29 answers
25 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1K5E1P3S1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing SKEPS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SKEPS:

30% chance
Suggested:
TALON
24% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
6% chance
Suggested:
ROANY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

30.0% →
TALON 5.84 bits
24.4% →
RAILE 5.33 bits
5.7% →
ROANY 4.82 bits
4.0% →
PATIO 5.15 bits
3.5% →
TRADE 4.60 bits
3.3% →
CLARY 5.04 bits
3.2% →
PLIER 4.72 bits
3.2% →
TRASH 4.70 bits
3.2% →
ROAST 4.80 bits
2.9% →
TIARE 4.16 bits

Research on SKEPS

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

Optimal play

Opening with SKEPS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.89 guesses and ranks #13,612 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.01 guesses at best and is rank #6,386 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.88, at or below the proven-optimal 3.89, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT).