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

GONZO

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

As an opener, it rules out about 75.0% of possible answers.

Open Solver with GONZO Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɡɑnzoʊ//ˈɡɒnzəʊ/

Adjective

Using an unconventional, exaggerated, and highly subjective style, often when the reporter takes part in the events of the story.

Adjective

Unconventional, bizarre, crazy.

Noun

Gonzo journalism or a journalist who produces such journalism.

Noun

A wild or crazy person.

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 GONZO performs as a guess

Wordle accepts GONZO 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 52.7% of games, misses completely in 47.3%, and leaves about 594 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,990 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.90 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

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

G___O G in the 1st position and O in the 5th position G__Z_ G in the 1st position and Z in the 4th position _O__O O in the 2nd position and O in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in GONZO.

First-turn measures

All four describe GONZO 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.

3.16 Entropy (bits)
594 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
75.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 3% of evaluated openers
2.79 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GONZO 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.

3.90 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#13,990 Rank among openers
Opening with GONZO left 4 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 3.90 average. It ranks #13,990 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
35
3 guesses
596
4 guesses
1,317
5 guesses
373
6 guesses
29
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:
NO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
53%
Green tile
24%
All gray
47%

Feedback distribution

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

1124 answers
226 answers
199 answers
161 answers
88 answers
79 answers
71 answers
62 answers
48 answers
34 answers
31 answers
27 answers
25 answers
18 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
10 answers
10 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
5 answers
4 answers
4 answers
4 answers
4 answers
3 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2O1N1Z10O1
Total: 15 points

Words With Friends

Total: 17 points

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

Try next

SLATE RAISE CRATE TALER CADIE RAILE

Strategy after playing GONZO

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GONZO:

47% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
10% chance
Suggested:
RAISE
8% chance
Suggested:
CRATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

47.3% →
SLATE 6.27 bits
9.5% →
RAISE 5.37 bits
8.4% →
CRATE 5.28 bits
6.8% →
TALER 4.68 bits
3.7% →
CADIE 4.68 bits
3.3% →
RAILE 5.15 bits
3.0% →
SNARE 4.36 bits
2.6% →
SALUE 4.87 bits
2.0% →
SLIER 4.06 bits
1.4% →
STURE 3.62 bits

Research on GONZO

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

Optimal play

Opening with GONZO, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.93 guesses and ranks #14,210 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.07 guesses at best and is rank #6,949 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.90, at or below the proven-optimal 3.93, 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 GAHNZOH.

Related meanings

Synonyms bizarre eccentric freaky outlandish unconventional

Opposites conventional

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
GONZO sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.

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).