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

CIBOL

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A perennial onion plant, Allium fistulosum, commonly called Welsh onion.

Alternative forms: chibbal, chibol, ciboul, ciboule

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 CIBOL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CIBOL 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 77.7% of games, misses completely in 22.3%, and leaves about 197 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,846 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 CIBOL 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.

4.66 Entropy (bits)
197 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 62% of evaluated openers
1.29 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CIBOL 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.

3.62 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#1,846 Rank among openers
Opening with CIBOL solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.62 average. It ranks #1,846 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
63
3 guesses
966
4 guesses
1,151
5 guesses
159
6 guesses
15
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:
ILO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
29%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

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

529 answers
248 answers
198 answers
183 answers
104 answers
87 answers
69 answers
60 answers
59 answers
55 answers
54 answers
51 answers
37 answers
36 answers
36 answers
34 answers
33 answers
33 answers
32 answers
30 answers
26 answers
24 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
16 answers
16 answers
12 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3I1B3O1L1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing CIBOL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CIBOL:

22% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
10% chance
Suggested:
TRONE
8% chance
Suggested:
TRINE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.3%
TARSE 6.39 bits
10.4%
TRONE 5.45 bits
8.3%
TRINE 5.67 bits
7.7%
STALE 5.48 bits
4.4%
SATED 4.53 bits
3.7%
REAST 5.47 bits
2.9%
PRATE 5.29 bits
2.5%
SALLE 4.11 bits
2.5%
PATER 4.46 bits
2.3%
SPAER 4.36 bits

Research on CIBOL

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

Optimal play

Opening with CIBOL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #3,104 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.78 guesses at best and is rank #848 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it SYBUHL. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.