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

EARST

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Adverb

Obsolete spelling of erst.

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

Use EARST in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 96.7% 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 EARST performs as a guess

Wordle accepts EARST 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 90.1% of games, misses completely in 9.9%, and leaves about 80 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #48 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.55 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 EARST 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.

5.76 Entropy (bits)
80 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
96.7% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How EARST 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.

3.55 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#48 Rank among openers
Opening with EARST 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 3.55 average. It ranks #48 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
103
3 guesses
1,023
4 guesses
1,075
5 guesses
138
6 guesses
11

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AERST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
90%
Green tile
35%
All gray
10%

Feedback distribution

EARST can come back 143 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

236 answers
186 answers
152 answers
102 answers
95 answers
88 answers
84 answers
71 answers
68 answers
66 answers
57 answers
52 answers
47 answers
39 answers
37 answers
35 answers
33 answers
30 answers
29 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
27 answers
25 answers
25 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

E1A1R1S1T1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 5 points

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

Strategy after playing EARST

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing EARST:

10% chance
Suggested:
COULD
8% chance
Suggested:
GENIE
6% chance
Suggested:
DRIER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

9.9% →
COULD 5.50 bits
7.8% →
GENIE 5.11 bits
6.4% →
DRIER 4.45 bits
4.3% →
PLAIN 4.88 bits
4.0% →
GRIND 4.74 bits
3.7% →
SPINY 4.82 bits
3.5% →
ALANE 4.58 bits
3.0% →
DRAIN 4.33 bits
2.9% →
CANDY 4.10 bits
2.8% →
YOUTH 4.67 bits

Research on EARST

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

Optimal play

Opening with EARST, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.58 guesses and ranks #52 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.71 guesses at best and is rank #21 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.55, at or below the proven-optimal 3.58, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT).