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

PILAR

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

As an opener, it rules out about 95.1% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Adjective

Relating to hair.

Adjective

Covered in hair; hairy.

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 PILAR performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PILAR 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 88.0% of games, misses completely in 12.0%, and leaves about 116 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #503 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.58 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 PILAR 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.

5.19 Entropy (bits)
116 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 91% of evaluated openers
0.76 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PILAR 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.

3.58 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#503 Rank among openers
Opening with PILAR left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.58 average. It ranks #503 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
78
3 guesses
1,016
4 guesses
1,080
5 guesses
165
6 guesses
14
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

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AILR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
30%
All gray
12%

Feedback distribution

PILAR can come back 121 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

284 answers
228 answers
206 answers
134 answers
133 answers
132 answers
104 answers
80 answers
76 answers
61 answers
54 answers
51 answers
44 answers
40 answers
36 answers
34 answers
31 answers
25 answers
25 answers
23 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3I1L1A1R1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing PILAR

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PILAR:

12% chance
Suggested:
STONE
10% chance
Suggested:
STONE
9% chance
Suggested:
SCOTE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

12.0%
STONE 5.88 bits
9.6%
STONE 5.21 bits
8.7%
SCOTE 5.53 bits
5.6%
STONE 5.36 bits
5.6%
STONE 4.99 bits
5.6%
CRATE 4.81 bits
4.4%
STANE 4.61 bits
3.4%
CONTE 4.43 bits
3.2%
TOUSE 3.84 bits
2.6%
TRINE 4.53 bits

Research on PILAR

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

Optimal play

Opening with PILAR, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,106 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 PILAR can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.58, at or below the proven-optimal 3.64, 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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it PYLUR.

Rhymes with TYLER MILER FILER SILER

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
PILAR 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.

In a sentence

Pilar grew up with a secular and antifascist education.
© tatoeba.org contributor MethodGT (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).