5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess C tier for first-turn info

NERVY

Yes, NERVY was the Wordle answer on July 16, 2025 (Wordle #1488).

As an opener, it rules out about 92.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with NERVY Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈnɜː.vi//ˈnɝ.vi/

Adjective

Having nerve; bold; brazen.

Adjective

Feeling nervous, anxious or agitated.

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: July 16, 2025 (#1488).

See the full page for that puzzle: July 16, 2025 (#1488).

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

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How NERVY performs as a guess

NERVY is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 83.6% of games, misses completely in 16.4%, and leaves about 187 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,866 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.76 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

N___Y N in the 1st position and Y in the 5th position N__V_ N in the 1st position and V in the 4th position _E__Y E in the 2nd position and Y in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in NERVY.

First-turn measures

All four describe NERVY 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.

4.43 Entropy (bits)
187 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
92.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 47% of evaluated openers
1.52 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How NERVY 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.

3.76 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#9,866 Rank among openers
Opening with NERVY left 4 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.76 average. It ranks #9,866 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
61
3 guesses
764
4 guesses
1,231
5 guesses
264
6 guesses
29
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:
ENR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
31%
All gray
16%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S I L E D
S P E R M
J E R K Y
N E R V Y

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches NERVY in 5 guesses. See the trap-family guide for similar endgames.

Feedback distribution

NERVY can come back 93 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

390 answers
308 answers
220 answers
205 answers
193 answers
183 answers
104 answers
79 answers
63 answers
58 answers
44 answers
38 answers
34 answers
34 answers
29 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
25 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

N1E1R1V4Y4
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Try next

COAST SLATE STAIR SAULT ANILE SHALT

Strategy after playing NERVY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing NERVY:

16% chance
Suggested:
COAST
13% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
9% chance
Suggested:
STAIR

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.4% →
COAST 6.00 bits
13.0% →
SLATE 5.69 bits
9.3% →
STAIR 4.48 bits
8.6% →
COAST 5.33 bits
8.1% →
COAST 5.32 bits
7.7% →
SAULT 4.72 bits
4.4% →
ANILE 4.70 bits
3.3% →
SHALT 4.79 bits
2.7% →
GROAN 4.44 bits
2.4% →
COAST 4.85 bits

Research on NERVY

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

Optimal play

Opening with NERVY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,216 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.94 guesses at best and is rank #5,175 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.76, at or below the proven-optimal 3.77, 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 NURVEE.

Rhymes with CURVY

Related meanings

Synonyms cheeky edgy forward bold TENSE

Opposites relaxed backward TIMID

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
NERVY 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with internal bodily sensation (2.8 of 5).

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).