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

LIRKS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of lirk

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of lirk

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 LIRKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts LIRKS 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 84.5% of games, misses completely in 15.5%, and leaves about 167 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,503 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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 LIRKS 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.

4.61 Entropy (bits)
167 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 59% of evaluated openers
1.34 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How LIRKS 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.

3.66 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#4,503 Rank among openers
Opening with LIRKS left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.66 average. It ranks #4,503 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
45
3 guesses
935
4 guesses
1,157
5 guesses
199
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
1 vowels
Common:
ILRS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
22%
All gray
16%

Feedback distribution

LIRKS can come back 84 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

368 answers
309 answers
229 answers
196 answers
139 answers
89 answers
87 answers
81 answers
80 answers
74 answers
68 answers
60 answers
54 answers
37 answers
36 answers
33 answers
27 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
20 answers
20 answers
16 answers
15 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

L1I1R1K5S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing LIRKS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing LIRKS:

16% chance
Suggested:
COATE
13% chance
Suggested:
COATE
10% chance
Suggested:
POTAE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.5%
COATE 5.91 bits
13.0%
COATE 5.40 bits
9.6%
POTAE 5.27 bits
8.3%
SPATE 5.65 bits
5.9%
ATONE 5.33 bits
3.7%
TRIED 4.68 bits
3.7%
COATE 4.92 bits
3.4%
TONEY 4.54 bits
3.4%
SPATE 4.97 bits
3.1%
STALE 4.77 bits

Research on LIRKS

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

Optimal play

Opening with LIRKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,310 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.81 guesses at best and is rank #1,797 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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 LURKS. Estimated pronunciation

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

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.