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

NIFLE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A trifle; something small and insignificant.

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 NIFLE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts NIFLE 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 83.1% of games, misses completely in 16.9%, and leaves about 152 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,525 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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 NIFLE 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.

4.89 Entropy (bits)
152 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 77% of evaluated openers
1.06 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How NIFLE 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.

3.66 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#4,525 Rank among openers
Opening with NIFLE left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.66 average. It ranks #4,525 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
73
3 guesses
886
4 guesses
1,173
5 guesses
206
6 guesses
15
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:
EILN

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
33%
All gray
17%

Feedback distribution

NIFLE can come back 107 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

402 answers
258 answers
188 answers
149 answers
128 answers
111 answers
99 answers
80 answers
75 answers
69 answers
59 answers
48 answers
41 answers
37 answers
36 answers
35 answers
32 answers
30 answers
25 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

N1I1F4L1E1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing NIFLE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing NIFLE:

17% chance
Suggested:
ROAST
11% chance
Suggested:
ROAST
8% chance
Suggested:
ROAST

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.9%
ROAST 6.07 bits
10.9%
ROAST 5.34 bits
7.9%
ROAST 5.28 bits
6.3%
ROAST 5.23 bits
5.4%
SOLAR 5.15 bits
4.7%
ROAST 5.20 bits
4.2%
REBEL 4.57 bits
3.4%
EATEN 4.41 bits
3.2%
COAST 4.57 bits
2.9%
SHART 4.30 bits

Research on NIFLE

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

Optimal play

Opening with NIFLE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,524 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.81 guesses at best and is rank #1,666 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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 NYFUHL. 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.