PESKY
Yes, PESKY was the Wordle answer on March 11, 2024 (Wordle #996).
As an opener, it rules out about 89.4% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈpɛski/
- Adjective
-
Annoying, troublesome, irritating (usually of an animal or child).
“Stay out of my yard, you pesky kids!”
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
Used oncePast Wordle answer: March 11, 2024 (#996).
See the full page for that puzzle: March 11, 2024 (#996).
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 PESKY performs as a guess
PESKY 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 78.0% of games, misses completely in 22.0%, and leaves about 252 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,867 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.78 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 PESKY 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 PESKY 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 PESKY in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
PESKY can come back 80 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 PESKY; 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 PESKY
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to PESKY.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing PESKY:
Research on PESKY
Game-tree analysis and word research for PESKY, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with PESKY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,434 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 PESKY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.78; proven optimal play reaches 3.77. 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 PEHSKEE.
Related meanings
Synonyms annoying irritating teasing
Opposites agreeable
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- PESKY sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once 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 (3.1 of 5).
In a sentence
That pesky imp must be punished.
I was bitten by a pesky midge during our camping trip.
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).