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

NOWED

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Adjective

Knotted; tied in a knot.

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

Etymology

From French noué, past participle of nouer (“to knot”), from Latin nodare. See nodated.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use NOWED in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 91.4% 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 NOWED performs as a guess

Wordle accepts NOWED 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 80.3% of games, misses completely in 19.7%, and leaves about 205 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,653 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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 NOWED 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.

4.52 Entropy (bits)
205 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How NOWED 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#5,653 Rank among openers
Opening with NOWED solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.68 average. It ranks #5,653 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
63
3 guesses
849
4 guesses
1,231
5 guesses
200
6 guesses
11

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ENO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
28%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

NOWED can come back 97 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

469 answers
383 answers
169 answers
162 answers
144 answers
118 answers
83 answers
71 answers
58 answers
55 answers
53 answers
45 answers
44 answers
32 answers
27 answers
27 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
20 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

N1O1W4E1D2
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing NOWED

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing NOWED:

20% chance
Suggested:
SLART
16% chance
Suggested:
SLART
7% chance
Suggested:
SAINT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.7% →
SLART 6.01 bits
16.1% →
SLART 5.94 bits
7.1% →
SAINT 5.27 bits
6.8% →
SLART 5.22 bits
6.0% →
STAIR 4.54 bits
4.9% →
SALTY 4.55 bits
3.5% →
GEARE 4.63 bits
3.0% →
RAILE 4.57 bits
2.4% →
SLART 4.25 bits
2.3% →
ACORN 4.32 bits

Research on NOWED

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

Optimal play

Opening with NOWED, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #5,213 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 NOWED can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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).