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

CIRLS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of cirl

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 CIRLS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CIRLS 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 87.4% of games, misses completely in 12.6%, and leaves about 126 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #751 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.59 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 CIRLS 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.

5.06 Entropy (bits)
126 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 86% of evaluated openers
0.89 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CIRLS 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.

3.59 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#751 Rank among openers
Opening with CIRLS left 3 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 3.59 average. It ranks #751 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
65
3 guesses
1,037
4 guesses
1,060
5 guesses
170
6 guesses
19
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.46 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ILRS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
87%
Green tile
30%
All gray
13%

Feedback distribution

CIRLS can come back 107 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

300 answers
268 answers
198 answers
176 answers
105 answers
82 answers
75 answers
74 answers
67 answers
66 answers
65 answers
59 answers
57 answers
53 answers
45 answers
45 answers
43 answers
29 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
24 answers
19 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3I1R1L1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing CIRLS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CIRLS:

13% chance
Suggested:
ATONE
11% chance
Suggested:
ORATE
8% chance
Suggested:
STANE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

12.6%
ATONE 5.72 bits
11.3%
ORATE 5.20 bits
8.3%
STANE 5.62 bits
7.4%
POTAE 5.36 bits
4.4%
ATONE 5.28 bits
3.5%
TRIED 4.79 bits
3.2%
POTAE 4.68 bits
3.1%
SPATE 5.03 bits
2.8%
TONEY 4.49 bits
2.8%
ATONE 4.49 bits

Research on CIRLS

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

Optimal play

Opening with CIRLS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,082 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.75 guesses at best and is rank #267 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, at or below the proven-optimal 3.64, 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 SURLZ. 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.