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

SOAPS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 90.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of soap

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of soap

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 SOAPS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SOAPS 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 77.1% of games, misses completely in 22.9%, and leaves about 227 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,199 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.77 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 SOAPS 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.

4.30 Entropy (bits)
227 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 38% of evaluated openers
1.65 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SOAPS 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.

3.77 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#10,199 Rank among openers
Opening with SOAPS left 3 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 3.77 average. It ranks #10,199 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
46
3 guesses
787
4 guesses
1,208
5 guesses
292
6 guesses
18
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
77%
Green tile
39%
All gray
23%

Feedback distribution

SOAPS can come back 77 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

544 answers
331 answers
175 answers
172 answers
154 answers
117 answers
89 answers
82 answers
66 answers
61 answers
48 answers
44 answers
37 answers
36 answers
35 answers
27 answers
27 answers
25 answers
24 answers
19 answers
19 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
9 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1O1A1P3S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing SOAPS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SOAPS:

23% chance
Suggested:
TRINE
14% chance
Suggested:
TALER
7% chance
Suggested:
TRONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.9%
TRINE 6.03 bits
13.9%
TALER 5.48 bits
7.4%
TRONE 4.42 bits
7.2%
TRINE 5.24 bits
6.5%
DRICE 4.95 bits
4.9%
TRINE 5.03 bits
3.7%
TALON 4.35 bits
3.5%
PRICE 5.04 bits
2.8%
HEIST 4.90 bits
2.6%
LEANT 3.86 bits

Research on SOAPS

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

Optimal play

Opening with SOAPS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.79 guesses and ranks #10,084 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.94 guesses at best and is rank #5,141 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.77, at or below the proven-optimal 3.79, 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 SOHPS.

Rhymes with HOPES ROPES LOPES COPES

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SOAPS is a kind of cleaner or bribe.

Synonyms max SCOOP

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SOAPS 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.

In a sentence

Sodium hydroxide is used in making soaps.
© tatoeba.org contributor mervert1 (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Most liquid soaps are detergents.
© 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).