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

OTAKU

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /əʊˈtɑːkuː/[əʊ̯ˈtʰɑːkʰuː]/oʊˈtɑku/

Noun

One with an obsessive interest in something, particularly (originally derogatory) an obsessive Japanese fan of anime or manga.

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

Etymology

From Japanese オタク (otaku, “geek, nerd”) originally used in reference to the 1982 Macross fandom, from the honorific form お宅 (otaku, “you”), from the honorific form 宅 (taku, “home”) ("your home").

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

In a sentence

I consider myself an otaku and I have even made a pilgrimage to Akihabara.
© tatoeba.org contributor sabretou (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use OTAKU in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 92.4% 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 OTAKU performs as a guess

Wordle accepts OTAKU 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 84.4% of games, misses completely in 15.6%, and leaves about 182 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,150 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.79 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 OTAKU 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.

4.37 Entropy (bits)
182 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How OTAKU 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.

3.79 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#11,150 Rank among openers
Opening with OTAKU left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.79 average. It ranks #11,150 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
44
3 guesses
744
4 guesses
1,261
5 guesses
276
6 guesses
28

Composition

5/5 unique
3 vowels
Common:
AOTU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
19%
All gray
16%

Feedback distribution

OTAKU can come back 71 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

371 answers
285 answers
278 answers
191 answers
168 answers
158 answers
111 answers
92 answers
87 answers
67 answers
59 answers
54 answers
38 answers
37 answers
30 answers
27 answers
24 answers
22 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
17 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

O1T1A1K5U1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing OTAKU

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing OTAKU:

16% chance
Suggested:
SILER
12% chance
Suggested:
DROLE
12% chance
Suggested:
RAILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.6% →
SILER 5.80 bits
12.0% →
DROLE 5.20 bits
11.7% →
RAILE 5.30 bits
8.0% →
SLIER 5.21 bits
7.0% →
SHIER 5.29 bits
6.6% →
CRISE 5.00 bits
4.7% →
LATTE 4.60 bits
3.9% →
CAROL 4.69 bits
3.6% →
SIREN 4.48 bits
2.8% →
BRISE 4.67 bits

Research on OTAKU

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

Optimal play

Opening with OTAKU, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,651 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.93 guesses at best and is rank #4,902 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.79, at or below the proven-optimal 3.80, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
OTAKU 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).