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

LYCEA

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of lyceum

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 LYCEA performs as a guess

Wordle accepts LYCEA 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 88.3% of games, misses completely in 11.7%, and leaves about 124 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,965 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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 LYCEA 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.

4.92 Entropy (bits)
124 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 79% of evaluated openers
1.02 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How LYCEA 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.

3.70 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#6,965 Rank among openers
Opening with LYCEA left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.70 average. It ranks #6,965 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
74
3 guesses
825
4 guesses
1,209
5 guesses
219
6 guesses
26
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:
AEL

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
22%
All gray
12%

Feedback distribution

LYCEA can come back 97 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

278 answers
243 answers
184 answers
153 answers
139 answers
126 answers
100 answers
97 answers
93 answers
77 answers
69 answers
65 answers
63 answers
62 answers
46 answers
44 answers
39 answers
39 answers
34 answers
31 answers
31 answers
24 answers
22 answers
18 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

L1Y4C3E1A1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing LYCEA

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing LYCEA:

12% chance
Suggested:
SNORT
10% chance
Suggested:
NOIRE
8% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

11.7%
SNORT 6.03 bits
10.2%
NOIRE 5.25 bits
7.8%
TRAIN 5.47 bits
6.4%
SENOR 4.37 bits
5.9%
STARE 4.72 bits
5.3%
NOISY 3.99 bits
4.2%
ROAST 4.40 bits
4.1%
TOUCH 4.99 bits
3.9%
SPOIL 4.58 bits
3.2%
TARDY 4.17 bits

Research on LYCEA

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

Optimal play

Opening with LYCEA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,593 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with LYCEA can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.70; proven optimal play reaches 3.70. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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

Three syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it LYSEEUH. 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.