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

HORKS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 90.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of hork

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 HORKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HORKS 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 77.6% of games, misses completely in 22.4%, and leaves about 218 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,021 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.72 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 HORKS 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.

4.44 Entropy (bits)
218 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 48% of evaluated openers
1.50 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HORKS 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.

3.72 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#8,021 Rank among openers
Opening with HORKS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.72 average. It ranks #8,021 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
46
3 guesses
868
4 guesses
1,164
5 guesses
249
6 guesses
27
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:
ORS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
23%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

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

531 answers
326 answers
225 answers
136 answers
119 answers
105 answers
104 answers
58 answers
57 answers
56 answers
45 answers
40 answers
39 answers
34 answers
30 answers
30 answers
30 answers
28 answers
25 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4O1R1K5S1
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing HORKS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HORKS:

22% chance
Suggested:
ANILE
14% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
9% chance
Suggested:
STALE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.4%
ANILE 6.21 bits
13.7%
ARIEL 5.15 bits
9.5%
STALE 5.73 bits
5.7%
ALINE 5.45 bits
5.0%
LAIDE 4.37 bits
4.4%
DAINE 4.34 bits
4.4%
NAICE 5.22 bits
2.4%
SETAE 4.77 bits
2.4%
VAIRE 4.36 bits
2.4%
SLATE 4.65 bits

Research on HORKS

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

Optimal play

Opening with HORKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,536 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.85 guesses at best and is rank #2,798 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.72, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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 HAWRKS. 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.