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

THOWL

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

As an opener, it rules out about 90.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Alternative form of thowel.

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 THOWL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts THOWL 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 75.3% of games, misses completely in 24.7%, and leaves about 230 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,927 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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 THOWL 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.

4.43 Entropy (bits)
230 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 47% of evaluated openers
1.52 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How THOWL 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#5,927 Rank among openers
Opening with THOWL 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 3.68 average. It ranks #5,927 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
56
3 guesses
881
4 guesses
1,180
5 guesses
224
6 guesses
13
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:
LOT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
75%
Green tile
26%
All gray
25%

Feedback distribution

THOWL can come back 93 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

587 answers
259 answers
222 answers
185 answers
92 answers
83 answers
71 answers
65 answers
64 answers
61 answers
56 answers
55 answers
48 answers
47 answers
35 answers
33 answers
32 answers
25 answers
23 answers
22 answers
18 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1H4O1W4L1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing THOWL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing THOWL:

25% chance
Suggested:
RAISE
11% chance
Suggested:
BAILE
9% chance
Suggested:
RAISE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

24.7%
RAISE 6.17 bits
10.9%
BAILE 5.32 bits
9.4%
RAISE 5.70 bits
7.8%
SANER 5.37 bits
3.9%
PRASE 4.53 bits
3.5%
RAINE 4.76 bits
3.0%
SACRE 4.96 bits
2.7%
SLANE 4.82 bits
2.7%
CRANE 4.90 bits
2.6%
NOIRE 4.27 bits

Research on THOWL

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

Optimal play

Opening with THOWL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #7,111 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.82 guesses at best and is rank #2,076 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.73, 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 THOWL. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.