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

WALDS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of wald

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

Use WALDS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 91.2% 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 WALDS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts WALDS 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 77.6% of games, misses completely in 22.4%, and leaves about 210 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,521 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 WALDS 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)
210 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.2% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How WALDS 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
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#5,521 Rank among openers
Opening with WALDS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.67 means those games clustered within about 0.67 of a guess of the 3.68 average. It ranks #5,521 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
48
3 guesses
880
4 guesses
1,215
5 guesses
204
6 guesses
7

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ALS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
24%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

WALDS can come back 83 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

534 answers
256 answers
189 answers
168 answers
153 answers
134 answers
121 answers
104 answers
54 answers
53 answers
47 answers
41 answers
38 answers
36 answers
32 answers
28 answers
27 answers
22 answers
22 answers
19 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

W4A1L1D2S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing WALDS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing WALDS:

22% chance
Suggested:
TRONE
11% chance
Suggested:
ROUET
8% chance
Suggested:
CRONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.4% →
TRONE 6.14 bits
10.7% →
ROUET 5.60 bits
7.9% →
CRONE 5.62 bits
7.0% →
CRINE 5.00 bits
6.4% →
RONTE 4.90 bits
5.6% →
ALATE 4.56 bits
5.1% →
DINER 5.45 bits
4.4% →
PEART 4.94 bits
2.3% →
SLIPE 4.36 bits
2.2% →
DRONE 4.67 bits

Research on WALDS

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

Optimal play

Opening with WALDS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,702 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with WALDS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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).