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

YOKES

YOKES 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.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of yoke

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of yoke

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 YOKES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts YOKES 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 86.4% of games, misses completely in 13.6%, and leaves about 170 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,284 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 YOKES 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.

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

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How YOKES 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
99.83% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#11,284 Rank among openers
Opening with YOKES left 4 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.79 average. It ranks #11,284 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
32
3 guesses
740
4 guesses
1,290
5 guesses
263
6 guesses
25
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:
EOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
25%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

YOKES can come back 63 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

363 answers
322 answers
180 answers
180 answers
156 answers
147 answers
134 answers
104 answers
69 answers
57 answers
55 answers
52 answers
52 answers
50 answers
49 answers
38 answers
35 answers
25 answers
24 answers
22 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
10 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

Y4O1K5E1S1
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing YOKES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing YOKES:

15% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
14% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL
8% chance
Suggested:
RAILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.3%
TIARE 5.39 bits
13.6%
TRAIL 6.17 bits
7.6%
RAILE 4.31 bits
7.6%
TALON 5.06 bits
6.6%
DAIRY 4.55 bits
6.2%
SLART 5.31 bits
5.6%
SLART 4.98 bits
4.4%
CARNE 4.21 bits
2.9%
DRONE 4.40 bits
2.4%
SAULT 4.39 bits

Research on YOKES

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

Optimal play

Opening with YOKES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.76 guesses and ranks #8,607 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 YOKES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.79; proven optimal play reaches 3.76. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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 YOHKS.

Rhymes with FOLKS JOKES POKES YOLKS SOAKS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, YOKES is a kind of material or oppression.

Synonyms couple link pair duo span BRACE

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
YOKES 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).