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

SOULS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /səʊlz//soʊlz/

Noun

plural of soul

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of soul

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 SOULS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SOULS 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 73.1% of games, misses completely in 26.9%, and leaves about 251 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,137 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.74 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 SOULS 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.

4.26 Entropy (bits)
251 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 36% of evaluated openers
1.68 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SOULS 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.

3.74 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#9,137 Rank among openers
Opening with SOULS left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.74 average. It ranks #9,137 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
36
3 guesses
823
4 guesses
1,226
5 guesses
244
6 guesses
23
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:
LOSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
73%
Green tile
37%
All gray
27%

Feedback distribution

SOULS can come back 75 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

639 answers
236 answers
198 answers
159 answers
135 answers
130 answers
89 answers
71 answers
58 answers
52 answers
45 answers
41 answers
32 answers
32 answers
31 answers
30 answers
30 answers
27 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
15 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1O1U1L1S1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing SOULS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SOULS:

27% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
10% chance
Suggested:
RAINE
8% chance
Suggested:
CRANE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

26.9%
TIARE 6.18 bits
9.9%
RAINE 5.26 bits
8.3%
CRANE 5.44 bits
6.7%
PARTE 5.40 bits
5.7%
RANCE 4.66 bits
5.5%
RANCE 4.89 bits
3.7%
PRATE 5.38 bits
3.0%
DAINE 4.66 bits
2.4%
CANOE 4.16 bits
2.2%
TROPE 3.66 bits

Research on SOULS

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

Optimal play

Opening with SOULS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,834 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.96 guesses at best and is rank #5,474 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.74, at or below the proven-optimal 3.80, 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 POLLS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SOULS is a kind of spirit or being.

Synonyms someone person individual somebody mortal psyche

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SOULS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 16 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 internal bodily sensation (2.4 of 5).

In a sentence

May God have their souls.
© tatoeba.org contributor alemfarid (CC BY 2.0 FR)
They have nothing, the poor souls.
© tatoeba.org contributor anzart (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).