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

THAWS

THAWS 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.

Open Solver with THAWS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of thaw

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of thaw

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 THAWS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts THAWS 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 75.6% of games, misses completely in 24.4%, and leaves about 229 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,489 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

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

T___S T in the 1st position and S in the 5th position T__W_ T in the 1st position and W in the 4th position _H__S H in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in THAWS.

First-turn measures

All four describe THAWS 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.

4.47 Entropy (bits)
229 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 50% of evaluated openers
1.48 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How THAWS 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.

3.69 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#6,489 Rank among openers
Opening with THAWS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.69 average. It ranks #6,489 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
56
3 guesses
860
4 guesses
1,198
5 guesses
229
6 guesses
11
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

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
AST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
24%
All gray
24%

Feedback distribution

THAWS can come back 94 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

580 answers
317 answers
175 answers
149 answers
105 answers
93 answers
81 answers
67 answers
66 answers
53 answers
46 answers
44 answers
39 answers
35 answers
32 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
25 answers
25 answers
22 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
15 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1H4A1W4S1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Try next

RIONE CARLE POIRE ROUET DRICE ALURE

Strategy after playing THAWS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing THAWS:

24% chance
Suggested:
RIONE
13% chance
Suggested:
CARLE
7% chance
Suggested:
POIRE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

24.4% →
RIONE 5.98 bits
13.4% →
CARLE 5.37 bits
7.4% →
POIRE 5.45 bits
6.3% →
ROUET 5.49 bits
4.4% →
DRICE 4.69 bits
3.9% →
ROUET 4.72 bits
3.4% →
ALURE 4.58 bits
2.8% →
SALEP 4.42 bits
2.8% →
CONEY 4.75 bits
2.2% →
LOWER 4.80 bits

Research on THAWS

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

Optimal play

Opening with THAWS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.74 guesses and ranks #7,358 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.85 guesses at best and is rank #2,878 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.74, 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 THAWZ.

Rhymes with DRAWS PAUSE FLAWS CLAWS GAUZE

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, THAWS is a kind of heating or conditions.

Synonyms warming melt melting dissolve

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
THAWS sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.3 of 5).

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).