5 FiveLetterWords
Accepted guess Not a possible answer C tier opener

YIKES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.8% of possible answers.

Open Solver with YIKES Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /jaɪks/

Interjection

Expression of shock and alarm.

“Yikes! A monster!”

Interjection

Expression of empathy with unpleasant or undesirable circumstances.

“John has lost his job and can't pay his mortgage; yikes!”

Alternative forms: yipes

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 YIKES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts YIKES 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 84.8% of games, misses completely in 15.2%, and leaves about 171 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete v5 benchmark, it ranks #11,327 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.

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

Y___S Y in the 1st position and S in the 5th position Y__E_ Y in the 1st position and E in the 4th position _I__S I in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position

Try next

TALON LEARE TRAIN EATER DROLE SLART
Words starting with Y Words ending with S

First-turn measures

4.44 Entropy (bits)
171 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 48% of evaluated openers
1.51 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opener: v5 benchmark

How YIKES 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
100.0% Win rate
0.68 Volatility
#11,327 v5 opener rank
In the complete v5 snapshot, YIKES ranks #11,327 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
38
3 guesses
712
4 guesses
1,323
5 guesses
261
6 guesses
19
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.45 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EIS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
85%
Green tile
22%
All gray
15%

Feedback distribution

63 possible patterns. Top outcomes:

358
328
176
173
166
153
138
92
70
57
55
53
51
43
32
29
29
28
28
27
27
23
21
21
17
14
13
11
11
9

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing YIKES:

15% chance
Suggested:
TALON
14% chance
Suggested:
LEARE
7% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.2% →
TALON 5.83 bits
13.9% →
LEARE 5.40 bits
7.5% →
TRAIN 5.43 bits
7.3% →
EATER 4.34 bits
7.0% →
DROLE 4.30 bits
6.5% →
SLART 5.31 bits
5.9% →
SLART 5.00 bits
3.9% →
TRADE 4.23 bits
3.0% →
COAST 3.80 bits
2.4% →
SAULT 4.35 bits

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

Y4I1K5E1S1
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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