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

SOLES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.5% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of sole

Noun

plural of sol

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of sole

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 SOLES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SOLES 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 84.7% of games, misses completely in 15.3%, and leaves about 154 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,734 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.76 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 SOLES 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.

4.72 Entropy (bits)
154 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.5% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 66% of evaluated openers
1.23 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SOLES 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.

3.76 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#9,734 Rank among openers
Opening with SOLES 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 3.76 average. It ranks #9,734 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
57
3 guesses
778
4 guesses
1,226
5 guesses
266
6 guesses
26
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:
ELOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
85%
Green tile
42%
All gray
15%

Feedback distribution

SOLES can come back 86 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

363 answers
308 answers
156 answers
155 answers
143 answers
120 answers
116 answers
106 answers
69 answers
63 answers
63 answers
52 answers
49 answers
46 answers
42 answers
37 answers
37 answers
32 answers
30 answers
29 answers
22 answers
19 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1O1L1E1S1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 6 points

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

Strategy after playing SOLES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SOLES:

15% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
13% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
7% chance
Suggested:
RAINY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.3%
TRAIN 5.97 bits
13.0%
TIARE 5.51 bits
6.6%
RAINY 4.82 bits
6.5%
APRON 5.08 bits
6.0%
EATER 4.33 bits
5.1%
REATE 4.78 bits
4.9%
NORTH 4.15 bits
4.5%
STANK 4.67 bits
2.9%
PARTE 4.49 bits
2.7%
DRONE 4.52 bits

Research on SOLES

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

Optimal play

Opening with SOLES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,299 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 SOLES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.76, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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 SOHLZ.

Rhymes with GOALS ROLES HOLES ROLLS SOULS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SOLES is a kind of mixture or syllable.

Synonyms so only exclusive lone solitary lonesome

Opposites multiple shared

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SOLES 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 (2.8 of 5).

In a sentence

He is American to the soles of his feet.
© tatoeba.org contributor witbrock (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I need new soles on these shoes.
© tatoeba.org contributor sharptoothed (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).