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

LYCRA

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Alternative form of Lycra.

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

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it LYKRUH.

In a sentence

Tom was dressed in lycra.
© tatoeba.org contributor shekitten (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Mary was dressed in lycra.
© tatoeba.org contributor Spamster (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use LYCRA in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 93.6% 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 LYCRA performs as a guess

Wordle accepts LYCRA 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 85.9% of games, misses completely in 14.1%, and leaves about 153 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,095 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.65 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 LYCRA 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.

4.72 Entropy (bits)
153 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.6% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How LYCRA 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.

3.65 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#4,095 Rank among openers
Opening with LYCRA 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 3.65 average. It ranks #4,095 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
61
3 guesses
923
4 guesses
1,149
5 guesses
205
6 guesses
14

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ALR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
15%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

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

337 answers
297 answers
195 answers
174 answers
142 answers
136 answers
134 answers
113 answers
60 answers
58 answers
57 answers
44 answers
42 answers
41 answers
38 answers
32 answers
29 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
27 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
17 answers
16 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

L1Y4C3R1A1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing LYCRA

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing LYCRA:

14% chance
Suggested:
SIENT
12% chance
Suggested:
TOISE
8% chance
Suggested:
STANE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.1% →
SIENT 6.36 bits
12.5% →
TOISE 5.54 bits
8.2% →
STANE 5.44 bits
7.3% →
TOISE 5.33 bits
6.0% →
ALATE 4.63 bits
5.7% →
SATED 4.62 bits
5.6% →
STOPE 4.67 bits
4.7% →
TOISE 5.31 bits
2.5% →
NASTY 4.23 bits
2.4% →
SHITE 4.56 bits

Research on LYCRA

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

Optimal play

Opening with LYCRA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,871 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.83 guesses at best and is rank #2,320 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.65, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
LYCRA 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).