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

HANDI

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈhɑːndi//ˈɦɑːɳɖi/

Noun

A deep, narrow-mouthed vessel used in north Indian, Pakistani and Bengali cooking.

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

From Hindustani ہانڈی / हांडी (hāṇḍī).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use HANDI in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 92.2% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

How HANDI performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HANDI 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 80.6% of games, misses completely in 19.4%, and leaves about 187 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,147 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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 HANDI 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.

4.57 Entropy (bits)
187 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.2% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HANDI 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.

3.66 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#4,147 Rank among openers
Opening with HANDI left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.66 average. It ranks #4,147 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
50
3 guesses
924
4 guesses
1,178
5 guesses
188
6 guesses
13

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AIN

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
81%
Green tile
22%
All gray
19%

Feedback distribution

HANDI can come back 89 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

462 answers
293 answers
233 answers
157 answers
119 answers
114 answers
88 answers
80 answers
64 answers
62 answers
62 answers
50 answers
48 answers
43 answers
32 answers
30 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
23 answers
22 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4A1N1D2I1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing HANDI

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HANDI:

19% chance
Suggested:
SOREL
12% chance
Suggested:
ALERT
10% chance
Suggested:
STILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.4% →
SOREL 6.18 bits
12.3% →
ALERT 5.58 bits
9.8% →
STILE 5.39 bits
6.6% →
SLYER 4.86 bits
5.0% →
CORSE 5.52 bits
4.8% →
TORSE 5.24 bits
3.7% →
SOGER 4.65 bits
3.4% →
DROLE 5.13 bits
2.7% →
GLARE 4.73 bits
2.6% →
DROLE 4.63 bits

Research on HANDI

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

Optimal play

Opening with HANDI, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #5,134 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 HANDI can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
HANDI 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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).