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

GURKS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 88.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

To attack, beat up.

“Don't talk shit or you might get gurksed.”

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of gurk

Noun

plural of gurk

Alternative forms: gurk

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 GURKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts GURKS 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 73.8% of games, misses completely in 26.2%, and leaves about 280 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,523 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.75 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 GURKS 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.

4.11 Entropy (bits)
280 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 28% of evaluated openers
1.84 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GURKS 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.

3.75 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#9,523 Rank among openers
Opening with GURKS left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.75 average. It ranks #9,523 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
42
3 guesses
823
4 guesses
1,186
5 guesses
279
6 guesses
22
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
1 vowels
Common:
RSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
74%
Green tile
21%
All gray
26%

Feedback distribution

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

622 answers
377 answers
286 answers
98 answers
95 answers
87 answers
83 answers
72 answers
52 answers
48 answers
45 answers
40 answers
32 answers
32 answers
32 answers
27 answers
22 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2U1R1K5S1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing GURKS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GURKS:

26% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
16% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
12% chance
Suggested:
STALE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

26.2%
TOILE 6.05 bits
15.9%
ARIEL 5.18 bits
12.0%
STALE 5.77 bits
4.1%
ALONE 5.29 bits
4.0%
ATONE 4.92 bits
3.7%
STOAE 4.99 bits
3.5%
COATE 4.85 bits
3.0%
BLITE 4.29 bits
2.2%
ANOLE 4.87 bits
2.0%
CRUET 4.81 bits

Research on GURKS

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

Optimal play

Opening with GURKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,246 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.89 guesses at best and is rank #4,043 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.75, at or below the proven-optimal 3.77, 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 GURKS. 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.