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

THEWS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /θjuːz//θuːz/

Noun

plural of thew

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of thew

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

Use THEWS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 90.4% 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 THEWS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts THEWS 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 79.2% of games, misses completely in 20.8%, and leaves about 229 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,692 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.71 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 THEWS 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.

4.42 Entropy (bits)
229 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How THEWS 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.

3.71 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#7,692 Rank among openers
Opening with THEWS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.71 average. It ranks #7,692 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
62
3 guesses
806
4 guesses
1,241
5 guesses
231
6 guesses
14

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
EST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
20%
All gray
21%

Feedback distribution

THEWS can come back 92 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

496 answers
449 answers
151 answers
136 answers
111 answers
101 answers
93 answers
69 answers
62 answers
55 answers
44 answers
40 answers
38 answers
36 answers
34 answers
33 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
12 answers
12 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1H4E1W4S1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing THEWS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing THEWS:

21% chance
Suggested:
CAROL
19% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
6% chance
Suggested:
LAIRY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.8% →
CAROL 5.85 bits
18.8% →
RAILE 5.45 bits
6.3% →
LAIRY 5.03 bits
5.7% →
FAINT 5.04 bits
4.7% →
SPARE 4.68 bits
4.2% →
LEARE 4.86 bits
3.9% →
SAINT 4.50 bits
2.9% →
MORPH 4.72 bits
2.6% →
CREED 4.33 bits
2.3% →
COALY 4.39 bits

Research on THEWS

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

Optimal play

Opening with THEWS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,270 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.89 guesses at best and is rank #3,942 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.71, at or below the proven-optimal 3.77, 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).