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

GREEK

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

As an opener, it rules out about 88.9% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ɡɹiːk/

Noun

Alternative letter-case form of Greek (“nonsense writing or talk; gibberish”).

Noun

Alternative letter-case form of Greek (“anal sex”).

Verb

To display a placeholder (instead of text), especially to optimize speed in displaying text that would be too small to read.

Verb

To fill a template with nonsense text (particularly the Lorem ipsum), so that form can be focused on instead of content.

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 GREEK performs as a guess

Wordle accepts GREEK 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 72.7% of games, misses completely in 27.3%, and leaves about 264 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,234 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 GREEK 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.

4.23 Entropy (bits)
264 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 35% of evaluated openers
1.71 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GREEK 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
99.87% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#10,234 Rank among openers
Opening with GREEK left 3 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 3.77 average. It ranks #10,234 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
40
3 guesses
766
4 guesses
1,263
5 guesses
267
6 guesses
15
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:
ER

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
73%
Green tile
35%
All gray
27%

Feedback distribution

GREEK can come back 75 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

649 answers
292 answers
229 answers
109 answers
107 answers
105 answers
84 answers
84 answers
65 answers
51 answers
46 answers
44 answers
39 answers
35 answers
30 answers
29 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
10 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2R1E1E1K5
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing GREEK

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GREEK:

27% chance
Suggested:
SAULT
12% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
10% chance
Suggested:
COAST

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

27.3%
SAULT 5.91 bits
12.3%
SLATE 5.51 bits
9.6%
COAST 5.31 bits
4.6%
ROAST 3.52 bits
4.5%
REAST 4.54 bits
4.4%
SLANT 4.31 bits
3.5%
ALIEN 4.36 bits
3.5%
SAUNT 4.67 bits
2.7%
SLANT 4.71 bits
2.1%
SHALT 4.84 bits

Research on GREEK

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

Optimal play

Opening with GREEK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.79 guesses and ranks #10,057 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 GREEK can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.77, at or below the proven-optimal 3.79, 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

One syllable Say it GREEK.

Rhymes with SPEAK CREEK FREAK SNEAK CHEEK

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, GREEK is a kind of tongue or european.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
GREEK sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 32 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.

In a sentence

This is Greek to me.
© tatoeba.org contributor halfdan (CC BY 2.0 FR)
It is all Greek to me.
© tatoeba.org contributor shanghainese (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).