Possible answer Not used yet C tier for first-turn info

WELSH

WELSH is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.

As an opener, it rules out about 92.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /wɛlʃ/

Verb

To cheat or swindle someone, often by not paying a debt, especially a gambling debt.

Verb

To go back on one's word.

Adjective

Foreign.

Alternative forms: welch

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

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 WELSH performs as a guess

WELSH is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 81.3% of games, misses completely in 18.7%, and leaves about 189 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,575 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 WELSH 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.

4.60 Entropy (bits)
189 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
92.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 58% of evaluated openers
1.35 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How WELSH 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
#7,575 Rank among openers
Opening with WELSH 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 #7,575 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
59
3 guesses
818
4 guesses
1,231
5 guesses
227
6 guesses
18
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)
81%
Green tile
27%
All gray
19%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S I L E N
W E L S H

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches WELSH in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

WELSH can come back 94 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

443 answers
350 answers
199 answers
155 answers
137 answers
108 answers
94 answers
70 answers
64 answers
52 answers
44 answers
43 answers
42 answers
40 answers
36 answers
32 answers
26 answers
25 answers
23 answers
21 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

W4E1L1S1H4
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing WELSH

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing WELSH:

19% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
15% chance
Suggested:
IRATE
8% chance
Suggested:
FLAIL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.7%
TRAIN 6.01 bits
14.7%
IRATE 5.20 bits
8.4%
FLAIL 4.68 bits
6.5%
SCANT 5.12 bits
5.8%
AINEE 4.72 bits
4.5%
RAINY 4.55 bits
4.0%
PARTE 4.87 bits
2.9%
RAINY 4.86 bits
2.7%
RUOTE 4.30 bits
2.2%
TIARE 4.25 bits

Research on WELSH

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

Optimal play

Opening with WELSH, 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.

In hard mode it averages 3.85 guesses at best and is rank #3,005 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 3.73, 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 WEHLCH.

Rhymes with WELCH BELCH

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, WELSH is a kind of european or celtic.

Synonyms WELCH

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
WELSH sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 14 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.

In a sentence

I work in a Welsh school.
© tatoeba.org contributor azraelgnosis (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I work at a Welsh school.
© tatoeba.org contributor rul (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).