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

LINGA

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Alternative form of lingam.

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 LINGA performs as a guess

Wordle accepts LINGA 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 81.5% of games, misses completely in 18.5%, and leaves about 180 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,170 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 LINGA 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.

4.71 Entropy (bits)
180 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 66% of evaluated openers
1.23 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How LINGA 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
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#3,170 Rank among openers
Opening with LINGA left 2 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 #3,170 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
66
3 guesses
933
4 guesses
1,150
5 guesses
188
6 guesses
15
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:
AILN

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
20%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

LINGA can come back 103 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

439 answers
343 answers
157 answers
156 answers
147 answers
117 answers
79 answers
66 answers
64 answers
54 answers
54 answers
41 answers
40 answers
33 answers
27 answers
25 answers
25 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
21 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers
16 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

L1I1N1G2A1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing LINGA

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing LINGA:

18% chance
Suggested:
TORSE
14% chance
Suggested:
CRATE
7% chance
Suggested:
STRAE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.5%
TORSE 6.30 bits
14.4%
CRATE 5.81 bits
6.6%
STRAE 4.64 bits
6.6%
SOCLE 4.89 bits
6.2%
TRICE 5.51 bits
4.9%
TORSE 5.40 bits
3.3%
SCOTE 4.37 bits
2.8%
CARNE 4.32 bits
2.7%
STILE 4.28 bits
2.3%
RATIO 4.35 bits

Research on LINGA

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

Optimal play

Opening with LINGA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,868 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.80 guesses at best and is rank #1,399 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 3.70, 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 LIHNGGUH. Estimated pronunciation

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

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
LINGA 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), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).