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

NIGUA

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈniː.ɡwə/

Noun

A tropical flea, the chigoe.

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Use NIGUA in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 90.8% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

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

How NIGUA performs as a guess

Wordle accepts NIGUA 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 82.6% of games, misses completely in 17.4%, and leaves about 220 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,731 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.73 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 NIGUA 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.

4.40 Entropy (bits)
220 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.8% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How NIGUA 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.

3.73 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#8,731 Rank among openers
Opening with NIGUA solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.73 average. It ranks #8,731 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
51
3 guesses
842
4 guesses
1,162
5 guesses
279
6 guesses
20

Composition

5/5 unique
3 vowels
Common:
AINU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
18%
All gray
17%

Feedback distribution

NIGUA can come back 81 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

481 answers
414 answers
182 answers
174 answers
108 answers
106 answers
102 answers
71 answers
55 answers
53 answers
40 answers
39 answers
36 answers
33 answers
32 answers
32 answers
30 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
20 answers
16 answers
16 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

N1I1G2U1A1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing NIGUA

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing NIGUA:

20% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
17% chance
Suggested:
SOREL
8% chance
Suggested:
TRICE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.2% →
TARSE 5.62 bits
17.4% →
SOREL 5.85 bits
7.6% →
TRICE 5.39 bits
7.3% →
SLYER 4.97 bits
4.5% →
SHOER 4.93 bits
4.4% →
CLOTE 4.28 bits
4.3% →
CARLE 4.65 bits
3.0% →
RATEL 4.45 bits
2.3% →
TORSE 4.54 bits
2.2% →
CORSE 3.83 bits

Research on NIGUA

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

Optimal play

Opening with NIGUA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,161 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.89 guesses at best and is rank #3,984 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT).