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

ONCER

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.9% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈwʌnsɚ/

Noun

A person who does something once.

Noun

A single sexual encounter between two individuals, a one-night stand.

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 ONCER performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ONCER 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 87.6% of games, misses completely in 12.4%, and leaves about 120 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,637 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.61 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 ONCER 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.

5.10 Entropy (bits)
120 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 88% of evaluated openers
0.85 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ONCER 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.

3.61 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#1,637 Rank among openers
Opening with ONCER solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.61 average. It ranks #1,637 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
75
3 guesses
958
4 guesses
1,141
5 guesses
164
6 guesses
16
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

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ENOR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
23%
All gray
12%

Feedback distribution

ONCER can come back 105 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

294 answers
267 answers
161 answers
150 answers
125 answers
120 answers
87 answers
85 answers
78 answers
59 answers
56 answers
52 answers
50 answers
48 answers
43 answers
39 answers
32 answers
32 answers
31 answers
31 answers
29 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
22 answers
22 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

O1N1C3E1R1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing ONCER

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ONCER:

12% chance
Suggested:
SAULT
11% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
7% chance
Suggested:
SALTY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

12.4%
SAULT 5.98 bits
11.2%
SLATE 5.86 bits
6.8%
SALTY 5.18 bits
6.3%
SLATY 5.19 bits
5.3%
TIARE 4.69 bits
5.1%
SAINT 5.22 bits
3.7%
SAULT 3.84 bits
3.6%
CLASH 4.88 bits
3.3%
ABORT 4.22 bits
2.5%
SAINT 4.25 bits

Research on ONCER

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

Optimal play

Opening with ONCER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,267 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 ONCER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.61, at or below the proven-optimal 3.64, 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 AHNSUR. 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.