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

HYLIC

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈhaɪlɪk//ˈhʌɪlɪk/

Adjective

Synonym of physical, material, or base.

Noun

A base man, a person of merely physical concerns without mindfulness of either intellectual or spiritual matters.

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

Etymology

From Medieval Latin hylicus, from Ancient Greek ὑλικός (hulikós, “wooden, material”), from ῡ̔́λη (hū́lē, “wood, matter”) + -ικός (-ikós, “-ic, forming adjectives”). As a noun, a clipped calque of homo hylicus (“hylic man”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use HYLIC in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 89.8% 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 HYLIC performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HYLIC 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 74.6% of games, misses completely in 25.4%, and leaves about 244 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,188 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 HYLIC 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.

4.22 Entropy (bits)
244 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.8% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HYLIC 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
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#8,188 Rank among openers
Opening with HYLIC 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 3.72 average. It ranks #8,188 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
49
3 guesses
837
4 guesses
1,207
5 guesses
234
6 guesses
26

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
IL

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
75%
Green tile
15%
All gray
25%

Feedback distribution

HYLIC can come back 77 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

606 answers
252 answers
213 answers
190 answers
149 answers
107 answers
82 answers
77 answers
73 answers
59 answers
50 answers
46 answers
40 answers
39 answers
38 answers
30 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
23 answers
17 answers
17 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4Y4L1I1C3
Total: 13 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing HYLIC

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HYLIC:

25% chance
Suggested:
ORATE
11% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
9% chance
Suggested:
TRINE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.4% →
ORATE 6.07 bits
10.6% →
ROATE 5.30 bits
8.9% →
TRINE 5.45 bits
8.0% →
SARED 5.07 bits
6.2% →
CRANE 5.71 bits
4.5% →
TORSE 5.70 bits
3.4% →
TRADE 5.08 bits
3.2% →
STILE 4.35 bits
3.1% →
COATE 4.72 bits
2.5% →
CLEAN 4.71 bits

Research on HYLIC

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

Optimal play

Opening with HYLIC, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.76 guesses and ranks #8,923 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 #3,920 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 3.76, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT).