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

LINCH

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /lɪnt͡ʃ//lɪnʃ/

Noun

A ledge, a terrace; a right-angled projection; a lynchet.

Noun

An acclivity; a small hill or hillock.

Alternative forms: lynch

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 LINCH performs as a guess

Wordle accepts LINCH 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 75.8% of games, misses completely in 24.2%, and leaves about 213 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,924 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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 LINCH 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.

4.60 Entropy (bits)
213 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 58% of evaluated openers
1.35 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How LINCH 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#2,924 Rank among openers
Opening with LINCH left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.64 average. It ranks #2,924 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
48
3 guesses
989
4 guesses
1,107
5 guesses
189
6 guesses
20
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
1 vowels
Common:
ILN

Feedback chances

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

Feedback distribution

LINCH can come back 95 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

575 answers
261 answers
168 answers
142 answers
108 answers
95 answers
89 answers
77 answers
76 answers
51 answers
46 answers
44 answers
42 answers
42 answers
33 answers
30 answers
30 answers
27 answers
24 answers
22 answers
22 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
16 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

L1I1N1C3H4
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing LINCH

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing LINCH:

24% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
11% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
7% chance
Suggested:
ROATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

24.2%
TARSE 6.36 bits
11.0%
ROATE 5.28 bits
7.1%
ROATE 5.36 bits
6.0%
TRADE 5.46 bits
4.5%
ORATE 5.47 bits
4.0%
STARE 5.54 bits
3.7%
TRONE 4.64 bits
3.2%
SATED 4.47 bits
3.2%
ARISE 4.43 bits
2.1%
SAYER 4.62 bits

Research on LINCH

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

Optimal play

Opening with LINCH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #4,209 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.79 guesses at best and is rank #1,219 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.69, 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 LIHNCH.

Rhymes with LYNCH PINCH FINCH WINCH CINCH

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
LINCH 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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).