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

KERMA

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

The sum of the initial kinetic energies of all the charged particles liberated by uncharged ionizing radiation (neutrons and photons) in a sample of matter, divided by the mass of the sample.

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

Etymology

Acronym for kinetic energy released in matter.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use KERMA 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 KERMA performs as a guess

Wordle accepts KERMA 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 84.6% of games, misses completely in 15.4%, and leaves about 158 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,864 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.74 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 KERMA 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.

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

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How KERMA 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.

3.74 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#8,864 Rank among openers
Opening with KERMA left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.74 average. It ranks #8,864 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
57
3 guesses
807
4 guesses
1,204
5 guesses
265
6 guesses
19

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AER

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
85%
Green tile
22%
All gray
15%

Feedback distribution

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

367 answers
253 answers
252 answers
178 answers
137 answers
130 answers
118 answers
86 answers
75 answers
57 answers
51 answers
50 answers
40 answers
37 answers
36 answers
30 answers
30 answers
28 answers
27 answers
23 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
17 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

K5E1R1M3A1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing KERMA

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing KERMA:

15% chance
Suggested:
SONLY
11% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
11% chance
Suggested:
SAINT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.4% →
SONLY 5.58 bits
10.6% →
TOILE 5.44 bits
10.6% →
SAINT 5.35 bits
7.5% →
TOISE 4.49 bits
5.7% →
SLATE 4.78 bits
5.5% →
DROIT 5.04 bits
4.9% →
TRAIN 4.44 bits
3.6% →
BLITE 4.14 bits
3.1% →
CASTE 3.87 bits
2.4% →
MOUTH 4.60 bits

Research on KERMA

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

Optimal play

Opening with KERMA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.74 guesses and ranks #7,283 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.87 guesses at best and is rank #3,348 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.74, at or below the proven-optimal 3.74, 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
KERMA 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).