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

KRANZ

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Alternative form of krantz.

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

How it sounds

One syllable Say it KRANZ.

Rhymes with PLANS TRANS SCANS SPANS CLANS

Use KRANZ in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 89.6% 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 KRANZ performs as a guess

Wordle accepts KRANZ 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 75.9% of games, misses completely in 24.1%, and leaves about 248 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,189 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.79 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 KRANZ 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.

4.09 Entropy (bits)
248 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.6% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How KRANZ 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.

3.79 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#11,189 Rank among openers
Opening with KRANZ 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 3.79 average. It ranks #11,189 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
32
3 guesses
767
4 guesses
1,244
5 guesses
282
6 guesses
26

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ANR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
28%
All gray
24%

Feedback distribution

KRANZ can come back 65 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

575 answers
287 answers
273 answers
163 answers
144 answers
124 answers
120 answers
85 answers
76 answers
56 answers
50 answers
46 answers
43 answers
27 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
19 answers
17 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

K5R1A1N1Z10
Total: 18 points

Words With Friends

Total: 19 points

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

Strategy after playing KRANZ

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing KRANZ:

24% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
12% chance
Suggested:
SOREE
11% chance
Suggested:
SALET

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

24.1% →
TOILE 6.13 bits
12.0% →
SOREE 5.12 bits
11.5% →
SALET 5.46 bits
6.8% →
TOILE 5.23 bits
6.0% →
TALER 4.66 bits
5.2% →
STILE 5.23 bits
5.0% →
SPITE 4.78 bits
3.6% →
LANCE 4.46 bits
3.2% →
TOISE 4.78 bits
2.3% →
SLICE 4.74 bits

Research on KRANZ

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

Optimal play

Opening with KRANZ, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.82 guesses and ranks #11,530 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.95 guesses at best and is rank #5,259 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.79, at or below the proven-optimal 3.82, 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
KRANZ 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.

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).