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

EDEMA

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ɪˈdiː.mə/

Noun

An excessive accumulation of serum in tissue spaces or a body cavity.

“dependent edema”

Noun

A similar swelling in plants caused by excessive accumulation of water.

Alternative forms: oedema, œdema

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 EDEMA performs as a guess

Wordle accepts EDEMA 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 78.1% of games, misses completely in 21.9%, and leaves about 255 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,480 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.80 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.

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

First-turn measures

All four describe EDEMA 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.

4.07 Entropy (bits)
255 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 26% of evaluated openers
1.88 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How EDEMA 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.

3.80 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#11,480 Rank among openers
Opening with EDEMA 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 3.80 average. It ranks #11,480 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
47
3 guesses
709
4 guesses
1,285
5 guesses
296
6 guesses
14
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

4/5 unique
3 vowels
Common:
AE

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
16%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

EDEMA can come back 70 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

520 answers
373 answers
328 answers
215 answers
100 answers
79 answers
71 answers
66 answers
52 answers
48 answers
47 answers
44 answers
39 answers
36 answers
33 answers
29 answers
28 answers
27 answers
21 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

E1D2E1M3A1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing EDEMA

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing EDEMA:

22% chance
Suggested:
HOIST
16% chance
Suggested:
SLART
14% chance
Suggested:
RIONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.9%
HOIST 5.87 bits
15.7%
SLART 5.32 bits
13.8%
RIONE 5.20 bits
9.1%
SLART 4.96 bits
4.2%
ROUND 5.02 bits
3.3%
NOIRE 4.89 bits
3.0%
HUMOR 4.68 bits
2.8%
DRAIN 4.35 bits
2.2%
SLIER 4.16 bits
2.0%
SETER 3.98 bits

Research on EDEMA

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

Optimal play

Opening with EDEMA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.83 guesses and ranks #11,889 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 EDEMA can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.80, at or below the proven-optimal 3.83, 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

Three syllables, stress on the second syllable Say it IHDEEMUH.

Rhymes with PRIMA

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, EDEMA is a kind of lump.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
EDEMA sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with internal bodily sensation (3.5 of 5).

In a sentence

Tom had a cerebral edema.
© tatoeba.org contributor Hybrid (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).