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

ERVEN

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of erf

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 ERVEN performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ERVEN 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 75.4% of games, misses completely in 24.6%, and leaves about 242 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,439 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.77 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 ERVEN 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.

4.32 Entropy (bits)
242 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 40% of evaluated openers
1.63 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ERVEN 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.

3.77 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#10,439 Rank among openers
Opening with ERVEN left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.77 average. It ranks #10,439 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
56
3 guesses
762
4 guesses
1,222
5 guesses
288
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ENR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
75%
Green tile
30%
All gray
25%

Feedback distribution

ERVEN can come back 87 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

584 answers
295 answers
214 answers
212 answers
113 answers
113 answers
95 answers
73 answers
63 answers
45 answers
40 answers
31 answers
26 answers
25 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

E1R1V4E1N1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing ERVEN

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ERVEN:

25% chance
Suggested:
SAULT
12% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
9% chance
Suggested:
SAINT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

24.6%
SAULT 5.89 bits
12.4%
SLATE 5.81 bits
9.0%
SAINT 5.20 bits
8.9%
COAST 5.31 bits
4.8%
COAST 4.70 bits
4.8%
REAST 4.47 bits
4.0%
ROAST 3.45 bits
3.1%
ANISE 4.53 bits
2.7%
COATE 4.37 bits
1.9%
PALET 4.04 bits

Research on ERVEN

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

Optimal play

Opening with ERVEN, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,951 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 ERVEN can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.77, at or below the proven-optimal 3.78, 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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it URVUHN.

Familiarity and learning

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