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

PHYMA

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A tubercle, tumor, or abscess on any external part of the body.

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

Etymology

From Ancient Greek φῦμα (phûma).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use PHYMA in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 86.7% 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 PHYMA performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PHYMA 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 71.6% of games, misses completely in 28.4%, and leaves about 318 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,980 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.76 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 PHYMA 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.

3.99 Entropy (bits)
318 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
86.7% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PHYMA 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.

3.76 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#9,980 Rank among openers
Opening with PHYMA 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 3.76 average. It ranks #9,980 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
49
3 guesses
765
4 guesses
1,256
5 guesses
267
6 guesses
17

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
A

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
72%
Green tile
18%
All gray
28%

Feedback distribution

PHYMA can come back 80 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

678 answers
459 answers
168 answers
104 answers
91 answers
89 answers
88 answers
82 answers
66 answers
53 answers
52 answers
41 answers
34 answers
34 answers
33 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
14 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3H4Y4M3A1
Total: 15 points

Words With Friends

Total: 15 points

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

Strategy after playing PHYMA

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PHYMA:

28% chance
Suggested:
TRINE
19% chance
Suggested:
TRINE
7% chance
Suggested:
DROLE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

28.4% →
TRINE 6.13 bits
19.3% →
TRINE 5.46 bits
7.0% →
DROLE 4.86 bits
4.4% →
CONTE 5.09 bits
3.8% →
SLANT 4.12 bits
3.7% →
ROUET 5.22 bits
3.7% →
STILE 5.10 bits
3.4% →
STIRE 5.35 bits
2.8% →
RAISE 4.46 bits
2.2% →
CARTE 4.82 bits

Research on PHYMA

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

Optimal play

Opening with PHYMA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,757 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.90 guesses at best and is rank #4,285 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.76, at or below the proven-optimal 3.78, 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).