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

ESNES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 87.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of esne

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 ESNES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ESNES 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 72.5% of games, misses completely in 27.5%, and leaves about 302 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,718 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.88 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 ESNES 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.

3.80 Entropy (bits)
302 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 15% of evaluated openers
2.15 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ESNES 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.

3.88 Avg guesses
99.75% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#13,718 Rank among openers
Opening with ESNES left 6 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.88 average. It ranks #13,718 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
36
3 guesses
615
4 guesses
1,320
5 guesses
349
6 guesses
28
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

3/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ENS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
72%
Green tile
23%
All gray
28%

Feedback distribution

ESNES can come back 59 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

654 answers
356 answers
246 answers
188 answers
150 answers
140 answers
79 answers
73 answers
63 answers
42 answers
40 answers
34 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
12 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

E1S1N1E1S1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 6 points

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

Strategy after playing ESNES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ESNES:

28% chance
Suggested:
CAROL
15% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
10% chance
Suggested:
SLART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

27.5%
CAROL 5.92 bits
15.0%
TIARE 5.44 bits
10.4%
SLART 5.27 bits
7.9%
TRAIN 5.27 bits
6.3%
SOLAR 3.96 bits
5.9%
SLART 4.97 bits
3.3%
COALY 4.27 bits
3.1%
ALINE 4.56 bits
2.7%
SAUNT 4.28 bits
1.8%
DETER 3.81 bits

Research on ESNES

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

Optimal play

Opening with ESNES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.89 guesses and ranks #13,586 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 ESNES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.88, at or below the proven-optimal 3.89, 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 EHSNEEZ. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.