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

IAMBI

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

As an opener, it rules out about 84.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of iambus

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 IAMBI performs as a guess

Wordle accepts IAMBI 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 70.7% of games, misses completely in 29.3%, and leaves about 361 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,405 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.86 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 IAMBI 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.

3.50 Entropy (bits)
361 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
84.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 7% of evaluated openers
2.44 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How IAMBI 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.

3.86 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#13,405 Rank among openers
Opening with IAMBI left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.86 average. It ranks #13,405 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
39
3 guesses
632
4 guesses
1,308
5 guesses
357
6 guesses
16
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

4/5 unique
3 vowels
Common:
AI

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
71%
Green tile
18%
All gray
29%

Feedback distribution

IAMBI can come back 58 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

695 answers
395 answers
380 answers
197 answers
90 answers
79 answers
75 answers
55 answers
55 answers
42 answers
39 answers
30 answers
30 answers
30 answers
27 answers
20 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers
4 answers
4 answers
3 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

I1A1M3B3I1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing IAMBI

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing IAMBI:

29% chance
Suggested:
SOREL
17% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
16% chance
Suggested:
TRINE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

29.3%
SOREL 6.03 bits
16.6%
SLATE 5.60 bits
16.0%
TRINE 5.38 bits
8.3%
SLYER 4.77 bits
3.8%
BLUER 5.00 bits
3.3%
ROUTE 5.22 bits
3.2%
TRAIL 4.62 bits
2.3%
TRADE 4.74 bits
2.3%
SCALE 4.54 bits
1.8%
TRINE 4.44 bits

Research on IAMBI

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

Optimal play

Opening with IAMBI, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.89 guesses and ranks #13,620 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.02 guesses at best and is rank #6,468 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.86, at or below the proven-optimal 3.89, 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

Three syllables, stress on the second syllable Say it EEAHMBEE. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, IAMBI is a kind of foot.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0).