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

WISTS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of wist

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

Use WISTS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 84.8% 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 WISTS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts WISTS 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 66.1% of games, misses completely in 33.9%, and leaves about 363 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,322 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.79 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 WISTS 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.

3.74 Entropy (bits)
363 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
84.8% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How WISTS 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.

3.79 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#11,322 Rank among openers
Opening with WISTS 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 3.79 average. It ranks #11,322 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
35
3 guesses
752
4 guesses
1,251
5 guesses
295
6 guesses
19

Composition

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
IST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
66%
Green tile
20%
All gray
34%

Feedback distribution

WISTS can come back 66 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

808 answers
237 answers
232 answers
230 answers
110 answers
109 answers
83 answers
66 answers
61 answers
56 answers
40 answers
35 answers
27 answers
24 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
5 answers
5 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

W4I1S1T1S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing WISTS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing WISTS:

34% chance
Suggested:
CARLE
10% chance
Suggested:
CARET
10% chance
Suggested:
CRANE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

33.9% →
CARLE 6.19 bits
9.9% →
CARET 5.52 bits
9.7% →
CRANE 5.56 bits
9.6% →
PARLE 5.62 bits
4.6% →
ALURE 4.66 bits
4.6% →
DROLE 4.63 bits
3.5% →
CRANE 4.61 bits
2.8% →
HAOLE 4.66 bits
2.6% →
PLANE 4.56 bits
2.3% →
DROLE 4.89 bits

Research on WISTS

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

Optimal play

Opening with WISTS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.84 guesses and ranks #12,473 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 WISTS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.79, at or below the proven-optimal 3.84, 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).