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

STILB

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

a unit of luminance equal to one candela per square centimetre

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

Etymology

Coined by the French physicist André Blondel around 1920, from Ancient Greek στίλβω (stílbō, “I glitter”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use STILB in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 92.4% 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 STILB performs as a guess

Wordle accepts STILB 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 78.8% of games, misses completely in 21.2%, and leaves about 180 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #858 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.60 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.

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

First-turn measures

All four describe STILB 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.

4.70 Entropy (bits)
180 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How STILB 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.

3.60 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.66 Spread of game lengths
#858 Rank among openers
Opening with STILB solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.66 means those games clustered within about 0.66 of a guess of the 3.60 average. It ranks #858 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
55
3 guesses
1,009
4 guesses
1,132
5 guesses
150
6 guesses
8

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ILST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
30%
All gray
21%

Feedback distribution

STILB can come back 89 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

505 answers
215 answers
201 answers
138 answers
130 answers
86 answers
84 answers
83 answers
78 answers
57 answers
57 answers
52 answers
47 answers
45 answers
41 answers
37 answers
30 answers
30 answers
30 answers
27 answers
26 answers
23 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1T1I1L1B3
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing STILB

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing STILB:

21% chance
Suggested:
CARNE
9% chance
Suggested:
TREAT
8% chance
Suggested:
PORAE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.2% →
CARNE 6.18 bits
9.0% →
TREAT 5.62 bits
8.4% →
PORAE 5.35 bits
5.8% →
CARNE 5.38 bits
5.5% →
DINER 5.38 bits
3.6% →
PHARE 5.16 bits
3.5% →
CRONE 5.10 bits
3.5% →
BRANE 5.18 bits
3.3% →
TITHE 4.20 bits
2.4% →
DEARY 4.39 bits

Research on STILB

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

Optimal play

Opening with STILB, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,855 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.77 guesses at best and is rank #627 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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).