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

WELDS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of weld

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of weld

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 WELDS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts WELDS 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 80.5% of games, misses completely in 19.5%, and leaves about 197 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,271 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.73 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 WELDS 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.

4.47 Entropy (bits)
197 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 50% of evaluated openers
1.48 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How WELDS 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.

3.73 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#8,271 Rank among openers
Opening with WELDS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.73 average. It ranks #8,271 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
52
3 guesses
790
4 guesses
1,273
5 guesses
230
6 guesses
9
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:
ELS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
21%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

WELDS can come back 85 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

463 answers
311 answers
221 answers
185 answers
144 answers
122 answers
97 answers
93 answers
66 answers
57 answers
42 answers
36 answers
33 answers
32 answers
30 answers
29 answers
24 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

W4E1L1D2S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing WELDS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing WELDS:

20% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
13% chance
Suggested:
ORATE
9% chance
Suggested:
STAIR

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.5%
TRAIN 5.96 bits
13.1%
ORATE 5.27 bits
9.3%
STAIR 5.29 bits
7.8%
CAROL 4.81 bits
6.1%
STAIR 4.89 bits
5.1%
ALINE 4.50 bits
4.1%
CARTE 4.55 bits
3.9%
TRIAD 5.13 bits
2.8%
RAINE 4.68 bits
2.4%
SHALL 4.21 bits

Research on WELDS

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

Optimal play

Opening with WELDS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #7,147 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 WELDS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, 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 WEHLDZ.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, WELDS is a kind of herb or joint.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
WELDS sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.3 of 5).

In a sentence

You can get good welds with this welder.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Ziri welds in the garage.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).