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

LYTIC

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Adjective

Of, relating to, or causing lysis.

Adjective

Of or relating to lysin.

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 LYTIC performs as a guess

Wordle accepts LYTIC 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 80.6% of games, misses completely in 19.4%, and leaves about 183 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,619 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 LYTIC 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.

4.52 Entropy (bits)
183 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 53% of evaluated openers
1.42 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How LYTIC 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
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#4,619 Rank among openers
Opening with LYTIC 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 3.66 average. It ranks #4,619 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
49
3 guesses
947
4 guesses
1,121
5 guesses
217
6 guesses
18
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:
ILT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
81%
Green tile
16%
All gray
19%

Feedback distribution

LYTIC can come back 82 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

460 answers
242 answers
217 answers
167 answers
166 answers
161 answers
83 answers
60 answers
58 answers
55 answers
54 answers
50 answers
44 answers
43 answers
39 answers
38 answers
34 answers
33 answers
31 answers
26 answers
24 answers
21 answers
19 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
11 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

L1Y4T1I1C3
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing LYTIC

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing LYTIC:

19% chance
Suggested:
AROSE
10% chance
Suggested:
SOARE
9% chance
Suggested:
SOARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.4%
AROSE 6.05 bits
10.2%
SOARE 5.84 bits
9.1%
SOARE 5.26 bits
7.0%
RINSE 5.50 bits
7.0%
SOARE 5.85 bits
6.8%
DORSE 4.89 bits
3.5%
SHIER 4.66 bits
2.5%
CLEAN 4.70 bits
2.4%
GLARE 4.43 bits
2.3%
ALOSE 4.84 bits

Research on LYTIC

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

Optimal play

Opening with LYTIC, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,472 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 #2,333 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 3.72, 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 LYTIHK. Estimated pronunciation

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

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
LYTIC 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).