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

CROZE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kɹəʊz//kɹoʊz/

Noun

A groove at the ends of the staves of a barrel into which the edge of the head is fitted.

Noun

A cooper's tool for making these grooves.

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 CROZE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CROZE 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 82.2% of games, misses completely in 17.8%, and leaves about 162 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,163 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.71 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 CROZE 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.

4.71 Entropy (bits)
162 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 66% of evaluated openers
1.24 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CROZE 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.

3.71 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#7,163 Rank among openers
Opening with CROZE left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.71 average. It ranks #7,163 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
45
3 guesses
884
4 guesses
1,166
5 guesses
233
6 guesses
24
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:
EOR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
38%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

CROZE can come back 84 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

422 answers
240 answers
185 answers
182 answers
154 answers
117 answers
85 answers
80 answers
78 answers
74 answers
51 answers
45 answers
44 answers
37 answers
37 answers
35 answers
33 answers
32 answers
30 answers
26 answers
25 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3R1O1Z10E1
Total: 16 points

Words With Friends

Total: 17 points

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

Strategy after playing CROZE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CROZE:

18% chance
Suggested:
SAINT
10% chance
Suggested:
SLANT
8% chance
Suggested:
SAULT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.8%
SAINT 6.13 bits
10.1%
SLANT 5.54 bits
7.8%
SAULT 5.37 bits
7.7%
STAIR 4.37 bits
6.5%
TONAL 4.86 bits
4.9%
SLATY 4.98 bits
3.6%
SAINT 4.77 bits
3.4%
SLANT 4.77 bits
3.3%
SAINT 4.66 bits
3.1%
SAUNT 4.16 bits

Research on CROZE

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

Optimal play

Opening with CROZE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #7,126 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 CROZE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.71, at or below the proven-optimal 3.73, 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 KROHZ. Estimated pronunciation

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

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CROZE 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); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).