PAYER
PAYER is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.
As an opener, it rules out about 95.2% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈpeɪ.ɚ/
- Noun
-
One who pays; specifically, the person by whom a bill or note has been, or should be, paid.
“The company is the largest tax payer in the region.”
- Noun
-
A swaption which gives its holder the option to enter into a swap in which they pay the fixed leg and receive the floating leg.
Alternative forms: payor
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
Not used yetNo past answer date found.
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 PAYER performs as a guess
PAYER 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 88.1% of games, misses completely in 11.9%, and leaves about 113 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,624 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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 PAYER 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 PAYER 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 PAYER in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
PAYER can come back 114 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 PAYER; 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 PAYER
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to PAYER.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing PAYER:
Research on PAYER
Game-tree analysis and word research for PAYER, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with PAYER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.65 guesses and ranks #1,864 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 PAYER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.66; proven optimal play reaches 3.65. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.
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 PAYUR.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, PAYER is a kind of actor.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- PAYER sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 2 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.5 of 5).
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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).