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

ESKER

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

As an opener, it rules out about 90.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɛskɚ//ˈɛskə/

Noun

A long, narrow, sinuous ridge created by deposits from a stream running beneath a glacier.

Alternative forms: eskar

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 ESKER performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ESKER 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 77.5% of games, misses completely in 22.5%, and leaves about 228 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,402 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.79 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 ESKER 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.

4.19 Entropy (bits)
228 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 32% of evaluated openers
1.76 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ESKER 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.

3.79 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#11,402 Rank among openers
Opening with ESKER left 1 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 3.79 average. It ranks #11,402 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
40
3 guesses
721
4 guesses
1,294
5 guesses
280
6 guesses
18
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:
ERS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
20%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

ESKER can come back 66 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

533 answers
257 answers
253 answers
232 answers
150 answers
118 answers
99 answers
79 answers
73 answers
60 answers
47 answers
42 answers
39 answers
31 answers
28 answers
26 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

E1S1K5E1R1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing ESKER

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ESKER:

22% chance
Suggested:
TONAL
11% chance
Suggested:
LIANE
11% chance
Suggested:
TRIAD

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.5%
TONAL 5.82 bits
10.8%
LIANE 5.32 bits
10.7%
TRIAD 5.12 bits
9.8%
SAULT 5.28 bits
6.3%
COATE 4.71 bits
5.0%
SHALT 5.01 bits
4.2%
TOILE 3.42 bits
3.3%
ALIEN 4.32 bits
3.1%
COAST 4.78 bits
2.5%
CAULK 4.92 bits

Research on ESKER

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

Optimal play

Opening with ESKER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.82 guesses and ranks #11,483 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 ESKER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.79, at or below the proven-optimal 3.82, 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 EHSKUR.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, ESKER is a kind of ridge.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
ESKER 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 relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).