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

WITHE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /wɪθ//wɪð//waɪð/

Noun

A flexible, slender shoot or twig, especially when used as a band or for binding; a withy.

Noun

A band of twisted twigs.

Verb

To bind with withes.

Verb

To beat with withes.

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 WITHE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts WITHE 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 81.8% of games, misses completely in 18.2%, and leaves about 172 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,027 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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 WITHE 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.

4.67 Entropy (bits)
172 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 63% of evaluated openers
1.28 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How WITHE 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.

3.70 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#7,027 Rank among openers
Opening with WITHE solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.70 average. It ranks #7,027 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
73
3 guesses
793
4 guesses
1,257
5 guesses
223
6 guesses
8
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
2 vowels
Common:
EIT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
32%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

WITHE can come back 100 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

431 answers
265 answers
216 answers
174 answers
158 answers
106 answers
97 answers
68 answers
65 answers
59 answers
48 answers
45 answers
44 answers
43 answers
40 answers
38 answers
35 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
23 answers
22 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
15 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

W4I1T1H4E1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing WITHE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing WITHE:

18% chance
Suggested:
SALON
11% chance
Suggested:
SOLAR
9% chance
Suggested:
SORAL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.2%
SALON 5.82 bits
11.2%
SOLAR 5.21 bits
9.1%
SORAL 4.87 bits
7.3%
CAIRN 5.21 bits
6.7%
SONAR 5.36 bits
4.5%
ROACH 5.16 bits
4.1%
SLART 4.89 bits
2.9%
SAINT 4.52 bits
2.7%
SONLY 4.20 bits
2.5%
SONAR 3.76 bits

Research on WITHE

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

Optimal play

Opening with WITHE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #6,696 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 WITHE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, 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 WIHTH.

Rhymes with SMITH FRITH

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, WITHE is a kind of band or twig.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
WITHE 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.

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).