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

IMSHY

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

As an opener, it rules out about 87.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

Alternative form of imshee.

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 IMSHY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts IMSHY 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 71.9% of games, misses completely in 28.1%, and leaves about 294 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,331 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.77 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 IMSHY 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.

3.94 Entropy (bits)
294 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 20% of evaluated openers
2.00 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How IMSHY 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.

3.77 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#10,331 Rank among openers
Opening with IMSHY solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.77 average. It ranks #10,331 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
42
3 guesses
752
4 guesses
1,288
5 guesses
253
6 guesses
19
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:
IS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
72%
Green tile
21%
All gray
28%

Feedback distribution

IMSHY can come back 72 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

668 answers
310 answers
258 answers
177 answers
138 answers
110 answers
89 answers
83 answers
50 answers
44 answers
42 answers
35 answers
31 answers
25 answers
23 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

I1M3S1H4Y4
Total: 13 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing IMSHY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing IMSHY:

28% chance
Suggested:
ALTER
13% chance
Suggested:
TALER
11% chance
Suggested:
PEART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

28.1%
ALTER 6.09 bits
13.1%
TALER 5.40 bits
10.9%
PEART 5.66 bits
7.5%
TALER 4.82 bits
5.8%
COATE 5.72 bits
4.6%
MORAE 5.33 bits
3.7%
STILE 4.58 bits
3.5%
STRAE 4.84 bits
2.1%
TRICE 4.50 bits
1.9%
CARTE 4.35 bits

Research on IMSHY

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

Optimal play

Opening with IMSHY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,594 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 IMSHY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.77, at or below the proven-optimal 3.80, 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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it IHMSHEE. 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.