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

INKLE

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɪŋkl̩/

Noun

Narrow linen tape, used for trimmings or to make shoelaces

Verb

To hint at; disclose.

Verb

To have a hint or inkling of; divine.

Alternative forms: incle

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

Etymology

From Middle English inklen, inclen (“to give an inkling of, hint at, mention, utter in an undertone”), derived from inke (“apprehension, misgiving”), from Old English inca (“doubt, suspicion”), from Proto-West Germanic *inkō, from Proto-Germanic *inkô (“ache, regret”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁eng- (“illness”). Cognate with Old Frisian jinc (“angered”), Old Norse ekki (“pain, grief”), Norwegian ekkje (“lack, pity”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

In a sentence

When I'm weaving narrow bands, I use a table top inkle loom.
© tatoeba.org contributor Judith42 (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use INKLE in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 93.4% 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 INKLE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts INKLE 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 83.3% of games, misses completely in 16.7%, and leaves about 158 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,959 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 INKLE 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.

4.72 Entropy (bits)
158 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How INKLE 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
99.87% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#7,959 Rank among openers
Opening with INKLE left 3 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 #7,959 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
49
3 guesses
838
4 guesses
1,208
5 guesses
234
6 guesses
22

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EILN

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
28%
All gray
17%

Feedback distribution

INKLE can come back 82 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

397 answers
260 answers
186 answers
179 answers
135 answers
134 answers
105 answers
83 answers
63 answers
62 answers
56 answers
56 answers
55 answers
46 answers
45 answers
32 answers
31 answers
29 answers
23 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

I1N1K5L1E1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing INKLE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing INKLE:

17% chance
Suggested:
ROAST
11% chance
Suggested:
ROAST
8% chance
Suggested:
ROAST

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.7% →
ROAST 6.07 bits
10.9% →
ROAST 5.34 bits
7.8% →
ROAST 5.27 bits
7.5% →
ROAST 5.31 bits
5.7% →
SOLAR 5.16 bits
5.6% →
ROAST 5.06 bits
4.4% →
ALTER 4.46 bits
3.5% →
COAST 4.60 bits
2.6% →
OATER 4.27 bits
2.6% →
TRIED 4.43 bits

Research on INKLE

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

Optimal play

Opening with INKLE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,195 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.86 guesses at best and is rank #3,072 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
INKLE sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).