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

THESP

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

An actor.

Verb

To act (perform in a play etc.).

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

Use THESP in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 91.7% 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 THESP performs as a guess

Wordle accepts THESP 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 80.0% of games, misses completely in 20.0%, and leaves about 199 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,738 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.63 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 THESP 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.

4.79 Entropy (bits)
199 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.7% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How THESP 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.

3.63 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#2,738 Rank among openers
Opening with THESP 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 3.63 average. It ranks #2,738 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
67
3 guesses
942
4 guesses
1,147
5 guesses
185
6 guesses
13

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
EST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
25%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

THESP can come back 109 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

476 answers
415 answers
119 answers
113 answers
97 answers
69 answers
63 answers
61 answers
60 answers
59 answers
53 answers
52 answers
47 answers
32 answers
32 answers
32 answers
32 answers
31 answers
26 answers
25 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1H4E1S1P3
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing THESP

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing THESP:

20% chance
Suggested:
CAROL
17% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
5% chance
Suggested:
FAINT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.0% →
CAROL 5.91 bits
17.4% →
RAILE 5.41 bits
5.0% →
FAINT 5.06 bits
4.7% →
SNAIL 5.02 bits
4.1% →
LEARE 4.86 bits
2.9% →
PARLE 4.86 bits
2.6% →
RAINY 4.28 bits
2.6% →
RAINE 4.63 bits
2.5% →
PIANO 4.55 bits
2.5% →
CREED 4.36 bits

Research on THESP

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

Optimal play

Opening with THESP, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,644 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.80 guesses at best and is rank #1,399 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.63, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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).