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

OTARY

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Synonym of eared seal.

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

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ὠτάριον (ōtárion, “little ear”), diminutive of οὖς (oûs, “ear”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use OTARY in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 95.4% 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 OTARY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts OTARY 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 88.2% of games, misses completely in 11.8%, and leaves about 111 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,362 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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 OTARY 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.

5.13 Entropy (bits)
111 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How OTARY 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#3,362 Rank among openers
Opening with OTARY left 2 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 3.64 average. It ranks #3,362 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
68
3 guesses
941
4 guesses
1,128
5 guesses
193
6 guesses
22

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AORT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
35%
All gray
12%

Feedback distribution

OTARY can come back 109 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

282 answers
180 answers
167 answers
162 answers
132 answers
114 answers
110 answers
101 answers
91 answers
83 answers
69 answers
63 answers
53 answers
53 answers
51 answers
49 answers
36 answers
33 answers
32 answers
28 answers
28 answers
23 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
15 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

O1T1A1R1Y4
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing OTARY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing OTARY:

12% chance
Suggested:
SLICE
8% chance
Suggested:
SEINE
7% chance
Suggested:
CLONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

11.8% →
SLICE 6.13 bits
7.6% →
SEINE 5.20 bits
7.0% →
CLONE 5.25 bits
6.8% →
LANCE 5.29 bits
5.5% →
SIENT 5.21 bits
4.8% →
SLICE 5.15 bits
4.6% →
CLONE 4.16 bits
4.2% →
SPILE 4.57 bits
3.8% →
RACER 4.48 bits
3.5% →
SLICE 4.46 bits

Research on OTARY

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

Optimal play

Opening with OTARY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #3,850 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.83 guesses at best and is rank #2,195 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.69, 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).