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

NEROL

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

As an opener, it rules out about 96.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

The monoterpene alcohol (Z)-3,7-dimethyl-2,6-octadien-1-ol, found in many essential oils.

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 NEROL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts NEROL 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 90.4% of games, misses completely in 9.6%, and leaves about 91 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,603 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.61 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 NEROL 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.

5.36 Entropy (bits)
91 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
96.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 96% of evaluated openers
0.58 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How NEROL 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.

3.61 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#1,603 Rank among openers
Opening with NEROL 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 3.61 average. It ranks #1,603 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
77
3 guesses
956
4 guesses
1,141
5 guesses
161
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:
ELNOR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
90%
Green tile
27%
All gray
10%

Feedback distribution

NEROL can come back 115 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

227 answers
170 answers
157 answers
134 answers
119 answers
118 answers
111 answers
103 answers
70 answers
62 answers
56 answers
55 answers
53 answers
51 answers
49 answers
48 answers
42 answers
37 answers
36 answers
32 answers
30 answers
29 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
25 answers
24 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

N1E1R1O1L1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing NEROL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing NEROL:

10% chance
Suggested:
PATSY
7% chance
Suggested:
PATEE
7% chance
Suggested:
SAUTE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

9.6%
PATSY 5.50 bits
7.2%
PATEE 4.71 bits
6.6%
SAUTE 5.41 bits
5.6%
SAUCY 5.14 bits
5.0%
TRASH 4.97 bits
5.0%
GIANT 5.06 bits
4.7%
SOOTH 4.87 bits
4.3%
STALE 4.75 bits
2.9%
ANISE 4.62 bits
2.6%
STADE 4.44 bits

Research on NEROL

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

Optimal play

Opening with NEROL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.65 guesses and ranks #1,756 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.77 guesses at best and is rank #601 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.61, at or below the proven-optimal 3.65, 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 NEHRUHL. 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.