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

KNICK

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

As an opener, it rules out about 79.5% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

Alternative spelling of nick (“to make a notch in”).

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 KNICK performs as a guess

Wordle accepts KNICK 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 58.2% of games, misses completely in 41.8%, and leaves about 488 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,368 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe KNICK 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.

3.41 Entropy (bits)
488 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
79.5% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 5% of evaluated openers
2.54 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How KNICK 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
100% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#13,368 Rank among openers
Opening with KNICK solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.86 average. It ranks #13,368 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
29
3 guesses
676
4 guesses
1,277
5 guesses
336
6 guesses
36
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
1 vowels
Common:
IN

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
58%
Green tile
23%
All gray
42%

Feedback distribution

KNICK can come back 56 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

992 answers
233 answers
227 answers
170 answers
135 answers
66 answers
58 answers
58 answers
41 answers
41 answers
36 answers
32 answers
31 answers
24 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

K5N1I1C3K5
Total: 15 points

Words With Friends

Total: 17 points

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

Strategy after playing KNICK

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing KNICK:

42% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
10% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
10% chance
Suggested:
SALET

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

41.8%
ROATE 6.16 bits
9.8%
ROATE 5.47 bits
9.6%
SALET 5.22 bits
7.2%
SOARE 5.74 bits
5.7%
SLATE 5.17 bits
2.8%
SAGER 4.46 bits
2.4%
TRAPE 4.85 bits
2.4%
SARGE 4.18 bits
1.7%
CATER 4.26 bits
1.7%
SOARE 4.49 bits

Research on KNICK

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

Optimal play

Opening with KNICK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.88 guesses and ranks #13,512 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.03 guesses at best and is rank #6,562 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 3.88, 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

One syllable Say it NIHK.

Rhymes with QUICK CLICK STICK TRICK THICK

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
KNICK sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.

In a sentence

Most souvenir shops are filled with worthless knick-knacks.
© tatoeba.org contributor darinmex (CC BY 2.0 FR)
The quaint little antique shop is full of unique trinkets, knick-knacks, and curios.
© tatoeba.org contributor swolesuki (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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