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

PERCE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

Obsolete form of pierce.

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 PERCE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PERCE 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 76.7% of games, misses completely in 23.3%, and leaves about 199 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,926 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 PERCE 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.

4.75 Entropy (bits)
199 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 68% of evaluated openers
1.20 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PERCE 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
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#2,926 Rank among openers
Opening with PERCE left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.64 average. It ranks #2,926 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
73
3 guesses
921
4 guesses
1,159
5 guesses
189
6 guesses
11
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ER

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
77%
Green tile
40%
All gray
23%

Feedback distribution

PERCE can come back 111 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

554 answers
229 answers
175 answers
136 answers
128 answers
111 answers
69 answers
68 answers
67 answers
65 answers
57 answers
50 answers
39 answers
34 answers
23 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3E1R1C3E1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing PERCE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PERCE:

23% chance
Suggested:
SAINT
10% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
7% chance
Suggested:
SAULT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

23.3%
SAINT 6.11 bits
9.6%
TRAIN 5.32 bits
7.4%
SAULT 5.31 bits
5.7%
ALIEN 5.14 bits
5.4%
SAINT 4.31 bits
4.7%
CLAIM 5.02 bits
2.9%
SHALT 4.60 bits
2.9%
SLATY 4.62 bits
2.8%
SAULT 4.27 bits
2.7%
SALTY 4.52 bits

Research on PERCE

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

Optimal play

Opening with PERCE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,475 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 #2,255 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 3.68, 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

One syllable Say it PURS.

Rhymes with WORSE NURSE VERSE CURSE PURSE

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
PERCE 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); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).