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

EMBAR

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ɪmˈbɑː/

Verb

To enclose (as though behind bars); to imprison.

Verb

To prohibit, debar (someone from doing something).

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

Etymology

From Middle French embarrer, from barre (“bar”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use EMBAR in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 93.3% 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 EMBAR performs as a guess

Wordle accepts EMBAR 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 84.2% of games, misses completely in 15.8%, and leaves about 161 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,618 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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 EMBAR 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.

4.75 Entropy (bits)
161 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.3% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How EMBAR 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.

3.70 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#6,618 Rank among openers
Opening with EMBAR left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.70 average. It ranks #6,618 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
69
3 guesses
854
4 guesses
1,162
5 guesses
257
6 guesses
10

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AER

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
21%
All gray
16%

Feedback distribution

EMBAR can come back 99 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

376 answers
286 answers
231 answers
158 answers
143 answers
135 answers
104 answers
94 answers
67 answers
52 answers
45 answers
40 answers
40 answers
37 answers
34 answers
33 answers
32 answers
29 answers
24 answers
24 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

E1M3B3A1R1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing EMBAR

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing EMBAR:

16% chance
Suggested:
SOILY
12% chance
Suggested:
SEINE
10% chance
Suggested:
SLANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.8% →
SOILY 5.71 bits
12.0% →
SEINE 5.43 bits
9.7% →
SLANT 5.45 bits
6.6% →
COURT 5.13 bits
6.0% →
SEINE 4.72 bits
5.7% →
SLATE 5.04 bits
4.4% →
CHART 4.39 bits
3.9% →
SOILY 3.48 bits
2.8% →
MUSTY 4.71 bits
2.2% →
TRACE 4.05 bits

Research on EMBAR

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

Optimal play

Opening with EMBAR, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,726 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 EMBAR can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
EMBAR 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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).