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

NERKS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of nerk

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 NERKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts NERKS 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 84.9% of games, misses completely in 15.1%, and leaves about 148 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,050 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 NERKS 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.

4.74 Entropy (bits)
148 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 68% of evaluated openers
1.21 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How NERKS 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
99.87% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#7,050 Rank among openers
Opening with NERKS left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.70 average. It ranks #7,050 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
44
3 guesses
865
4 guesses
1,206
5 guesses
217
6 guesses
19
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:
ENRS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
85%
Green tile
21%
All gray
15%

Feedback distribution

NERKS can come back 83 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

359 answers
219 answers
197 answers
173 answers
168 answers
160 answers
113 answers
87 answers
87 answers
64 answers
55 answers
53 answers
47 answers
43 answers
40 answers
29 answers
28 answers
26 answers
25 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

N1E1R1K5S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing NERKS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing NERKS:

15% chance
Suggested:
MOULT
9% chance
Suggested:
OLATE
8% chance
Suggested:
ORATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.1%
MOULT 5.57 bits
9.2%
OLATE 5.25 bits
8.3%
ORATE 4.31 bits
7.3%
TRAIL 5.22 bits
7.1%
SHALT 5.40 bits
6.7%
TONIC 5.17 bits
4.8%
STALE 4.97 bits
3.7%
THALE 4.69 bits
3.7%
AINEE 4.50 bits
2.7%
COALY 4.54 bits

Research on NERKS

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

Optimal play

Opening with NERKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,650 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.84 guesses at best and is rank #2,429 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, 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.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it NURKS. 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.