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

PONOR

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A natural surface opening associated with karst.

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 PONOR performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PONOR 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 73.3% of games, misses completely in 26.7%, and leaves about 257 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,409 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 PONOR 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.

4.32 Entropy (bits)
257 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 40% of evaluated openers
1.63 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PONOR 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
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#6,409 Rank among openers
Opening with PONOR 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 3.69 average. It ranks #6,409 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
48
3 guesses
881
4 guesses
1,186
5 guesses
223
6 guesses
15
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:
NOR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
73%
Green tile
33%
All gray
27%

Feedback distribution

PONOR can come back 86 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

634 answers
322 answers
196 answers
106 answers
101 answers
97 answers
93 answers
76 answers
62 answers
54 answers
53 answers
43 answers
41 answers
32 answers
30 answers
25 answers
23 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
20 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3O1N1O1R1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing PONOR

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PONOR:

27% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
14% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
8% chance
Suggested:
SALET

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

26.7%
SLATE 6.41 bits
13.6%
TIARE 5.60 bits
8.3%
SALET 5.42 bits
4.5%
SAULT 4.20 bits
4.3%
THALE 4.66 bits
4.1%
SLATE 5.16 bits
3.9%
SLATE 5.47 bits
3.2%
CADIE 4.67 bits
2.6%
TRACE 4.48 bits
2.3%
SLATE 4.96 bits

Research on PONOR

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

Optimal play

Opening with PONOR, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.74 guesses and ranks #7,380 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 PONOR can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.74, 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 POHNUR. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.