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

KIANG

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

As an opener, it rules out about 90.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kiˈɑŋ//kiˈæŋ/

Noun

A large wild ass, Equus kiang, native to the Tibetan Plateau.

Alternative forms: kiyang, kyang

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 KIANG performs as a guess

Wordle accepts KIANG 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 76.1% of games, misses completely in 23.9%, and leaves about 232 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,711 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.73 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 KIANG 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.

4.34 Entropy (bits)
232 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 41% of evaluated openers
1.60 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How KIANG 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.

3.73 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#8,711 Rank among openers
Opening with KIANG solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.73 average. It ranks #8,711 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
49
3 guesses
805
4 guesses
1,236
5 guesses
251
6 guesses
13
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
2 vowels
Common:
AIN

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
29%
All gray
24%

Feedback distribution

KIANG can come back 79 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

567 answers
329 answers
188 answers
175 answers
116 answers
103 answers
84 answers
66 answers
59 answers
53 answers
49 answers
44 answers
41 answers
34 answers
31 answers
28 answers
25 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

K5I1A1N1G2
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing KIANG

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing KIANG:

24% chance
Suggested:
SOREL
14% chance
Suggested:
TALER
8% chance
Suggested:
STIRE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

23.9%
SOREL 6.07 bits
13.9%
TALER 5.66 bits
7.9%
STIRE 5.32 bits
7.4%
SHORE 5.12 bits
4.9%
SENOR 5.02 bits
4.3%
SOLED 4.39 bits
3.5%
ROULE 5.29 bits
2.8%
SOREL 4.55 bits
2.5%
RABID 4.40 bits
2.2%
CLOSE 4.81 bits

Research on KIANG

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

Optimal play

Opening with KIANG, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.74 guesses and ranks #7,562 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 KIANG can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, 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.

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it KEEAHNG. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, KIANG is a kind of ass.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
KIANG 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); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).