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

HERTZ

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /hɜːts//hɜːs//hɝts/

Noun

In the International System of Units, the derived unit of frequency; one (period or cycle of any periodic event) per second.

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 HERTZ performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HERTZ 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 80.2% of games, misses completely in 19.8%, and leaves about 197 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,716 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.76 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.

Useful pattern pages

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

First-turn measures

All four describe HERTZ 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.

4.42 Entropy (bits)
197 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 46% of evaluated openers
1.53 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HERTZ 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.

3.76 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#9,716 Rank among openers
Opening with HERTZ left 1 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 3.76 average. It ranks #9,716 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
45
3 guesses
789
4 guesses
1,239
5 guesses
256
6 guesses
24
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:
ERT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
23%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

HERTZ can come back 78 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

471 answers
295 answers
207 answers
201 answers
166 answers
92 answers
92 answers
79 answers
73 answers
53 answers
53 answers
50 answers
43 answers
41 answers
40 answers
31 answers
30 answers
30 answers
26 answers
22 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
9 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4E1R1T1Z10
Total: 17 points

Words With Friends

Total: 16 points

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

Strategy after playing HERTZ

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HERTZ:

20% chance
Suggested:
SLAIN
12% chance
Suggested:
ALINE
9% chance
Suggested:
AINEE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.8%
SLAIN 5.96 bits
12.4%
ALINE 5.49 bits
8.7%
AINEE 4.32 bits
8.5%
ARSON 4.98 bits
7.0%
SAINT 5.44 bits
3.9%
SLANT 4.96 bits
3.9%
COALY 4.88 bits
3.3%
LIANE 4.52 bits
3.1%
COAST 4.58 bits
2.2%
COALY 4.71 bits

Research on HERTZ

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

Optimal play

Opening with HERTZ, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.79 guesses and ranks #10,389 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.92 guesses at best and is rank #4,731 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.76, 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 HEHRTS.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, HERTZ is a kind of rate.

Synonyms CYCLE cps hz

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
HERTZ 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.

In a sentence

Hertz and Avis are head to head competitors in the car rental business.
© tatoeba.org contributor protondonor (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).