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

PHYLE

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈfaɪli/

Noun

A local division of the people; a clan or tribe.

Noun

A subdivision of the priestly caste in ancient Egypt, headed by a phylarch.

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

Etymology

From New Latin phȳlē, from Ancient Greek φῡλή (phūlḗ, “a union of individuals into a community”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it FYL.

Rhymes with WHILE STYLE SMILE AISLE GUILE

Use PHYLE in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 92.6% 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 PHYLE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PHYLE 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 82.4% of games, misses completely in 17.6%, and leaves about 175 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,438 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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 PHYLE 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.

4.64 Entropy (bits)
175 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.6% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PHYLE 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.

3.69 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#6,438 Rank among openers
Opening with PHYLE solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.69 average. It ranks #6,438 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
55
3 guesses
861
4 guesses
1,211
5 guesses
206
6 guesses
21

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
EL

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
33%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

PHYLE can come back 91 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

420 answers
284 answers
231 answers
181 answers
166 answers
108 answers
97 answers
58 answers
57 answers
56 answers
52 answers
39 answers
37 answers
34 answers
34 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
22 answers
22 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
14 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3H4Y4L1E1
Total: 13 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing PHYLE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PHYLE:

18% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
12% chance
Suggested:
SONAR
10% chance
Suggested:
ROAST

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.6% →
TRAIN 6.25 bits
11.9% →
SONAR 5.10 bits
9.7% →
ROAST 5.12 bits
7.6% →
SONAR 5.08 bits
7.0% →
SONAR 4.72 bits
4.5% →
RENAL 4.46 bits
4.1% →
COAST 4.90 bits
2.4% →
ROAST 5.01 bits
2.4% →
STAIR 4.69 bits
2.3% →
SLADE 3.76 bits

Research on PHYLE

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

Optimal play

Opening with PHYLE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,400 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.87 guesses at best and is rank #3,416 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD).