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

NONYL

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

As an opener, it rules out about 87.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Any of very many isomeric univalent hydrocarbon radicals, C₉H₁₉, formally derived from nonane by the loss of a hydrogen atom.

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 NONYL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts NONYL 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 71.2% of games, misses completely in 28.8%, and leaves about 290 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,555 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.77 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.

Useful pattern pages

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

First-turn measures

All four describe NONYL 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.

3.93 Entropy (bits)
290 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 20% of evaluated openers
2.01 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How NONYL 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.

3.77 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#10,555 Rank among openers
Opening with NONYL left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.77 average. It ranks #10,555 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
34
3 guesses
754
4 guesses
1,300
5 guesses
241
6 guesses
24
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

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
LNO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
71%
Green tile
24%
All gray
29%

Feedback distribution

NONYL can come back 63 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

684 answers
245 answers
206 answers
187 answers
186 answers
118 answers
98 answers
75 answers
66 answers
54 answers
51 answers
48 answers
43 answers
27 answers
26 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
10 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

N1O1N1Y4L1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing NONYL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing NONYL:

29% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
10% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
9% chance
Suggested:
SATER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

28.8%
TARSE 6.41 bits
10.3%
SLATE 5.56 bits
8.7%
SATER 5.34 bits
7.9%
TARSE 5.15 bits
7.8%
TIARE 5.44 bits
5.0%
CRUET 4.87 bits
4.1%
REAST 4.73 bits
3.2%
SALLE 4.58 bits
2.8%
SWARE 4.52 bits
2.3%
CASTE 4.00 bits

Research on NONYL

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

Optimal play

Opening with NONYL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.83 guesses and ranks #12,000 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.98 guesses at best and is rank #5,885 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.77, at or below the proven-optimal 3.83, 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 NAHNYUHL. 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.