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

NICAD

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.2% of possible answers.

Open Solver with NICAD Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈnaɪˌkæd/

Noun

rechargeable nickel-cadmium battery

Alternative forms: NiCd

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 NICAD performs as a guess

Wordle accepts NICAD 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 80.2% of games, misses completely in 19.8%, and leaves about 186 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,596 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.63 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___D N in the 1st position and D in the 5th position N__A_ N in the 1st position and A in the 4th position _I__D I in the 2nd position and D in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe NICAD 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.

4.68 Entropy (bits)
186 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 64% of evaluated openers
1.27 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How NICAD 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.

3.63 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#2,596 Rank among openers
Opening with NICAD left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.63 average. It ranks #2,596 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
58
3 guesses
949
4 guesses
1,161
5 guesses
173
6 guesses
11
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:
AIN

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
22%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

NICAD can come back 99 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

469 answers
341 answers
135 answers
123 answers
111 answers
94 answers
94 answers
91 answers
80 answers
79 answers
75 answers
51 answers
48 answers
46 answers
32 answers
29 answers
24 answers
22 answers
20 answers
20 answers
20 answers
17 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

N1I1C3A1D2
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Try next

SOREL TARSE STILE TORSE SHORE SHARE

Strategy after playing NICAD

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing NICAD:

20% chance
Suggested:
SOREL
14% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
6% chance
Suggested:
STILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.8% →
SOREL 6.17 bits
14.4% →
TARSE 5.65 bits
5.7% →
STILE 5.39 bits
5.2% →
TORSE 5.35 bits
4.7% →
SHORE 5.32 bits
4.0% →
SHARE 4.83 bits
4.0% →
TARSE 4.63 bits
3.8% →
SALET 4.40 bits
3.4% →
TORSE 4.42 bits
3.3% →
DROLE 5.04 bits

Research on NICAD

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

Optimal play

Opening with NICAD, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,714 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 NICAD can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.63, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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 NIHKUHD. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, NICAD is a kind of battery.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
NICAD sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).