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

NIKAB

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Alternative spelling of niqab.

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

Use NIKAB in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 89.3% 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 NIKAB performs as a guess

Wordle accepts NIKAB 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 76.0% of games, misses completely in 24.0%, and leaves about 254 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,062 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe NIKAB 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.

4.12 Entropy (bits)
254 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.3% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How NIKAB 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
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#10,062 Rank among openers
Opening with NIKAB left 1 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 3.76 average. It ranks #10,062 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
39
3 guesses
761
4 guesses
1,282
5 guesses
260
6 guesses
11

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AIN

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
17%
All gray
24%

Feedback distribution

NIKAB can come back 67 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

571 answers
397 answers
185 answers
149 answers
118 answers
101 answers
94 answers
86 answers
82 answers
67 answers
64 answers
48 answers
40 answers
36 answers
30 answers
25 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
17 answers
14 answers
12 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

N1I1K5A1B3
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing NIKAB

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing NIKAB:

24% chance
Suggested:
SOREL
17% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
8% chance
Suggested:
STIRE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

24.0% →
SOREL 6.10 bits
16.7% →
TARSE 5.61 bits
7.8% →
STIRE 5.30 bits
6.2% →
TORSE 5.23 bits
4.9% →
SATED 4.20 bits
4.2% →
TARSE 4.53 bits
3.9% →
RATEL 4.69 bits
3.6% →
TOISE 4.52 bits
3.4% →
ROUET 5.11 bits
2.8% →
RATEL 4.42 bits

Research on NIKAB

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

Optimal play

Opening with NIKAB, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,504 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.88 guesses at best and is rank #3,707 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 3.78, 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).