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

WAWES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of wawe

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 WAWES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts WAWES 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 80.6% of games, misses completely in 19.4%, and leaves about 214 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,824 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.89 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 WAWES 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.

4.08 Entropy (bits)
214 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 27% of evaluated openers
1.86 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How WAWES 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.

3.89 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#13,824 Rank among openers
Opening with WAWES left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.89 average. It ranks #13,824 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
33
3 guesses
595
4 guesses
1,352
5 guesses
347
6 guesses
25
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AES

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
81%
Green tile
29%
All gray
19%

Feedback distribution

WAWES can come back 53 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

461 answers
302 answers
228 answers
184 answers
176 answers
176 answers
153 answers
112 answers
90 answers
56 answers
47 answers
42 answers
39 answers
36 answers
26 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

W4A1W4E1S1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing WAWES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing WAWES:

19% chance
Suggested:
COUNT
13% chance
Suggested:
RIONE
10% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.4%
COUNT 5.76 bits
12.7%
RIONE 5.10 bits
9.6%
TRAIL 5.26 bits
7.8%
SPOUT 5.00 bits
7.4%
OLDER 4.13 bits
7.4%
DEALT 4.83 bits
6.4%
RAINY 3.98 bits
4.7%
RONTE 4.51 bits
3.8%
SLART 4.59 bits
2.4%
SLART 4.02 bits

Research on WAWES

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

Optimal play

Opening with WAWES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.86 guesses and ranks #13,033 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 WAWES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.89; proven optimal play reaches 3.86. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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 WAWZ. 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.