Possible answer Not used yet C tier for first-turn info

GRAZE

GRAZE is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.

As an opener, it rules out about 93.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ɡɹeɪz/

Noun

The act of grazing; a scratching or injuring lightly on passing.

Noun

A light abrasion; a slight scratch.

Verb

To feed or supply (cattle, sheep, etc.) with grass; to furnish pasture for.

Verb

To feed on; to eat (growing herbage); to eat grass from (a pasture)

“Cattle graze in the meadows.”

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

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 GRAZE performs as a guess

GRAZE is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 82.6% of games, misses completely in 17.4%, and leaves about 158 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,767 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.78 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 GRAZE 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.

4.70 Entropy (bits)
158 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
93.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 65% of evaluated openers
1.25 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GRAZE 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.

3.78 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.74 Spread of game lengths
#10,767 Rank among openers
Opening with GRAZE left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.74 means those games clustered within about 0.74 of a guess of the 3.78 average. It ranks #10,767 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
59
3 guesses
747
4 guesses
1,225
5 guesses
296
6 guesses
25
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

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AER

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
37%
All gray
17%

Example solver route

R O A T E
C R I S P
B A D G E
G R A V E
G R A Z E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches GRAZE in 5 guesses. See the trap-family guide for similar endgames.

Feedback distribution

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

413 answers
223 answers
211 answers
165 answers
135 answers
120 answers
98 answers
91 answers
76 answers
75 answers
58 answers
57 answers
54 answers
46 answers
41 answers
36 answers
33 answers
32 answers
31 answers
27 answers
24 answers
24 answers
22 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2R1A1Z10E1
Total: 15 points

Words With Friends

Total: 16 points

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

Strategy after playing GRAZE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GRAZE:

17% chance
Suggested:
SOILY
9% chance
Suggested:
TALON
9% chance
Suggested:
INLET

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.4%
SOILY 5.68 bits
9.4%
TALON 5.10 bits
8.9%
INLET 5.10 bits
7.0%
SEITY 3.94 bits
5.7%
SLICE 4.60 bits
5.1%
TORUS 5.11 bits
4.1%
STALK 4.51 bits
3.8%
CAROL 4.44 bits
3.2%
PRINT 3.94 bits
3.2%
STEAL 4.39 bits

Research on GRAZE

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

Optimal play

Opening with GRAZE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #8,955 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 GRAZE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.78; proven optimal play reaches 3.77. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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

One syllable Say it GRAYZ.

Rhymes with PLAYS RAISE PHASE STAYS BLAZE

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, GRAZE is a kind of scratch or eating.

Synonyms RANGE crop browse grazing rake pasture

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
GRAZE sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.4 of 5).

In a sentence

Take the sheep out to graze.
© tatoeba.org contributor anzart (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I felt his hand graze my hair.
© tatoeba.org contributor Nuel (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).