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

BARIC

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈbæɹɪk//ˈbɛəɹɪk/

Adjective

Of or pertaining to weight, especially to the weight or pressure of the atmosphere as measured by a barometer.

Adjective

Of or pertaining to barium.

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

Etymology

From bar + -ic. Derived from the Ancient Greek word "pressure": barikos (βαρικός), from βάρος (báros, “weight, pressure”) + -ικός (-ikós, “-ic”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use BARIC in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 93.7% 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 BARIC performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BARIC 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 84.4% of games, misses completely in 15.6%, and leaves about 149 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,144 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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 BARIC 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.

4.83 Entropy (bits)
149 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.7% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BARIC 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#3,144 Rank among openers
Opening with BARIC left 1 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 3.64 average. It ranks #3,144 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
66
3 guesses
940
4 guesses
1,137
5 guesses
196
6 guesses
14

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AIR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
30%
All gray
16%

Feedback distribution

BARIC can come back 106 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

372 answers
223 answers
222 answers
203 answers
123 answers
118 answers
104 answers
95 answers
67 answers
63 answers
51 answers
48 answers
48 answers
44 answers
43 answers
36 answers
35 answers
34 answers
23 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3A1R1I1C3
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing BARIC

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BARIC:

16% chance
Suggested:
STOLE
9% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
9% chance
Suggested:
SIENT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.6% →
STOLE 5.98 bits
9.4% →
SLATE 5.74 bits
9.3% →
SIENT 5.43 bits
8.5% →
SOLED 5.02 bits
5.2% →
STONE 4.47 bits
4.9% →
TRADE 4.67 bits
4.4% →
SHULE 5.26 bits
4.0% →
SNIDE 4.35 bits
2.8% →
TOUSE 4.76 bits
2.6% →
SLANE 4.76 bits

Research on BARIC

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

Optimal play

Opening with BARIC, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,807 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.80 guesses at best and is rank #1,490 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BARIC sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).