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

WINDS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 87.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /wɪndz//waɪndz/

Noun

plural of wind

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of wind

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 WINDS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts WINDS 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 70.7% of games, misses completely in 29.3%, and leaves about 289 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,504 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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 WINDS 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.

4.15 Entropy (bits)
289 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 30% of evaluated openers
1.79 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How WINDS 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.

3.69 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#6,504 Rank among openers
Opening with WINDS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.67 means those games clustered within about 0.67 of a guess of the 3.69 average. It ranks #6,504 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
46
3 guesses
853
4 guesses
1,241
5 guesses
201
6 guesses
12
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:
INS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
71%
Green tile
20%
All gray
29%

Feedback distribution

WINDS can come back 78 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

695 answers
323 answers
157 answers
145 answers
119 answers
86 answers
85 answers
69 answers
66 answers
58 answers
52 answers
34 answers
33 answers
31 answers
31 answers
28 answers
27 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

W4I1N1D2S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing WINDS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing WINDS:

29% chance
Suggested:
CARLE
14% chance
Suggested:
STARE
7% chance
Suggested:
CRATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

29.3%
CARLE 6.28 bits
13.6%
STARE 5.74 bits
6.6%
CRATE 5.54 bits
6.1%
ROATE 5.40 bits
5.0%
DROLE 5.30 bits
3.6%
PALET 4.77 bits
3.6%
LEANT 4.65 bits
2.9%
CAGEY 4.67 bits
2.8%
STIPE 4.58 bits
2.4%
ATONE 4.60 bits

Research on WINDS

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

Optimal play

Opening with WINDS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #6,994 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 WINDS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, 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 WIHNDZ.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, WINDS is a kind of conditions or influence.

Synonyms lead roll tip nose lift thread

Opposites unwind

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
WINDS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 17 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with touch (3.7 of 5).

In a sentence

The river winds through time.
© tatoeba.org contributor Igider (CC BY 2.0 FR)
The river winds with purpose.
© tatoeba.org contributor Igider (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).