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

NANNA

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

grandmother

Alternative forms: nana, nan

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

Etymology

Uncertain, probably from Old Norse Nanna, with Norse levelling of -nþ- to -nn- from Proto-Germanic *nanþ- (“brave, daring”), related to *ninþaną (“to dare”); or possibly from an Old Norse baby talk word for "mother," as in nanna, nanny.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

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

Rhymes with DIANA MANNA CHANA GRANA

Related meanings

Synonyms grandmother grandma granny nan gran

Use NANNA in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 74.5% 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 NANNA performs as a guess

Wordle accepts NANNA 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 54.4% of games, misses completely in 45.6%, and leaves about 608 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #14,768 of 14,855 openers, averaging 4.04 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 NANNA 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.

2.85 Entropy (bits)
608 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
74.5% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How NANNA 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.

4.04 Avg guesses
99.70% Solved within six
0.74 Spread of game lengths
#14,768 Rank among openers
Opening with NANNA left 7 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.74 means those games clustered within about 0.74 of a guess of the 4.04 average. It ranks #14,768 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
26
3 guesses
466
4 guesses
1,292
5 guesses
512
6 guesses
51

Composition

2/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AN

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
54%
Green tile
28%
All gray
46%

Feedback distribution

NANNA can come back 43 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

1086 answers
423 answers
214 answers
124 answers
116 answers
82 answers
61 answers
41 answers
34 answers
26 answers
25 answers
25 answers
23 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
9 answers
6 answers
4 answers
3 answers
3 answers
3 answers
3 answers
2 answers
2 answers
2 answers
2 answers
2 answers
2 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

N1A1N1N1A1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing NANNA

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing NANNA:

46% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
18% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
9% chance
Suggested:
SLYER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

45.6% →
TOILE 5.95 bits
17.7% →
SLATE 5.60 bits
9.0% →
SLYER 4.76 bits
5.2% →
SIREN 4.93 bits
4.9% →
TOISE 4.73 bits
3.4% →
HOISE 4.54 bits
2.6% →
GRISE 4.52 bits
1.7% →
LEAST 3.84 bits
1.4% →
MOILE 4.30 bits
1.1% →
SIDEY 3.98 bits

Research on NANNA

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

Optimal play

Opening with NANNA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 4.06 guesses and ranks #14,809 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 NANNA can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 4.04, at or below the proven-optimal 4.06, 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
NANNA 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 relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).