NYMPH
Yes, NYMPH was the Wordle answer on March 27, 2022 (Wordle #281).
As an opener, it rules out about 84.0% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈnɪmf/
- Noun
-
Any female nature spirit associated with water, forests, grottos, wind, etc.
- Noun
-
A young girl, especially one who is attractive, beautiful or graceful.
- Verb
-
To fish using a nymph larva as bait.
Alternative forms: nymphe
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: March 27, 2022 (#281).
See the full page for that puzzle: March 27, 2022 (#281).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How NYMPH performs as a guess
NYMPH is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 65.5% of games, misses completely in 34.5%, and leaves about 381 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,871 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.78 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe NYMPH 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How NYMPH 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches NYMPH in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
NYMPH can come back 66 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for NYMPH; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing NYMPH
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to NYMPH.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing NYMPH:
Research on NYMPH
Game-tree analysis and word research for NYMPH, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with NYMPH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.81 guesses and ranks #11,109 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 NYMPH can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.78, at or below the proven-optimal 3.81, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, NYMPH is a kind of god or animal.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- NYMPH sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 12, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 54 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (1.8 of 5).
In a sentence
Tom is a centaur and Mary is a nymph.
The nymph, filled with a strange resolve, had suddenly stolen away from the group.
Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).