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

PARCH

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /pɑɹt͡ʃ//pɑːtʃ/

Verb

To burn the surface of, to scorch.

“The sun today could parch cement.”

Verb

To roast, as dry grain.

Noun

The condition of being parched.

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

Etymology

From Middle English parchen, paarchen (“to parch; dry; roast”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps a variant of Middle English perchen (“to roast”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it PAHRCH.

Rhymes with MARCH LARCH

Use PARCH in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 92.3% 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.

PARCH in Connections

1 recorded appearance in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.

How PARCH performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PARCH 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 79.4% of games, misses completely in 20.6%, and leaves about 184 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,039 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.60 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 PARCH 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.

4.82 Entropy (bits)
184 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.3% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PARCH 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.

3.60 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#1,039 Rank among openers
Opening with PARCH left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.60 average. It ranks #1,039 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
64
3 guesses
1,003
4 guesses
1,106
5 guesses
171
6 guesses
9

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
AR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
31%
All gray
21%

Feedback distribution

PARCH can come back 113 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

491 answers
263 answers
230 answers
136 answers
133 answers
79 answers
74 answers
71 answers
62 answers
47 answers
40 answers
39 answers
33 answers
32 answers
31 answers
31 answers
30 answers
28 answers
26 answers
26 answers
24 answers
24 answers
22 answers
18 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3A1R1C3H4
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing PARCH

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PARCH:

21% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
11% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
10% chance
Suggested:
ALATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.6% →
TOILE 6.12 bits
11.0% →
TOILE 5.17 bits
9.6% →
ALATE 5.47 bits
5.7% →
TRADE 4.76 bits
5.6% →
SONLY 4.61 bits
3.3% →
TOISE 5.51 bits
3.1% →
STILE 5.22 bits
3.0% →
CLONE 5.02 bits
2.6% →
NOISE 4.63 bits
2.0% →
TONEY 3.72 bits

Research on PARCH

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

Optimal play

Opening with PARCH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,152 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 PARCH can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, at or below the proven-optimal 3.66, 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
PARCH sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with internal bodily sensation (1.8 of 5).

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).