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

NACHO

NACHO 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

Pronunciation: /ˈnæt͡ʃəʊ//ˈnɑt͡ʃoʊ/

Noun

A single tortilla chip from a dish of nachos.

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 NACHO performs as a guess

Wordle accepts NACHO 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 81.3% of games, misses completely in 18.7%, and leaves about 180 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,228 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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 NACHO 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.

4.58 Entropy (bits)
180 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 57% of evaluated openers
1.37 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How NACHO 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.

3.69 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#6,228 Rank among openers
Opening with NACHO left 1 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 3.69 average. It ranks #6,228 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
45
3 guesses
895
4 guesses
1,177
5 guesses
218
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
2 vowels
Common:
ANO

Feedback chances

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

Feedback distribution

NACHO can come back 85 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

445 answers
269 answers
246 answers
162 answers
146 answers
84 answers
81 answers
81 answers
80 answers
66 answers
59 answers
49 answers
48 answers
46 answers
40 answers
39 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

N1A1C3H4O1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing NACHO

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing NACHO:

19% chance
Suggested:
SLIER
11% chance
Suggested:
ALERT
10% chance
Suggested:
SOLER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.7%
SLIER 6.11 bits
11.3%
ALERT 5.64 bits
10.4%
SOLER 5.23 bits
6.8%
SLIER 5.13 bits
6.1%
SLYER 4.74 bits
3.5%
DORSE 4.39 bits
3.4%
STIRE 5.37 bits
3.4%
CRISE 5.27 bits
3.4%
GRISE 4.54 bits
2.8%
DROLE 4.33 bits

Research on NACHO

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

Optimal play

Opening with NACHO, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,453 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 NACHO can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, 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 NACHOH.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
NACHO sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with taste (4.4 of 5).

In a sentence

Nacho already has grey hairs.
© tatoeba.org contributor ella695 (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Roberto and Nacho found some treasure in the ancient caverns.
© tatoeba.org contributor DJ_Saidez (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).