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

PRINK

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈpɹɪŋk/[ˈpʰɹʷɪŋk]/ˈpɹiŋk/

Noun

The act of adjusting one's dress or appearance; the act of sprucing oneself up.

Verb

To look, gaze.

Verb

To dress finely, primp, preen, spruce up.

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

Etymology

Perhaps alteration (due to primp) of prank (“to deck, adorn”), from Middle English pranken (“to trim”), or from Middle Dutch prinken (“to deck for show, parade in fine apparel”) (from pronk (“show, display”) or from Middle Low German prunken (from prank (“display”)).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Related meanings

Synonyms attire DRESS costume

Use PRINK in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 90.5% 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 PRINK performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PRINK 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 76.1% of games, misses completely in 23.9%, and leaves about 226 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,092 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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 PRINK 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.

4.50 Entropy (bits)
226 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.5% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PRINK 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#3,092 Rank among openers
Opening with PRINK left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.64 average. It ranks #3,092 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
55
3 guesses
950
4 guesses
1,150
5 guesses
186
6 guesses
12

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
INR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
31%
All gray
24%

Feedback distribution

PRINK can come back 93 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

569 answers
337 answers
149 answers
144 answers
108 answers
91 answers
88 answers
75 answers
70 answers
66 answers
50 answers
48 answers
36 answers
35 answers
35 answers
32 answers
30 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3R1I1N1K5
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing PRINK

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PRINK:

24% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
14% chance
Suggested:
TERRA
6% chance
Suggested:
SALET

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

23.9% →
SLATE 6.41 bits
14.1% →
TERRA 5.39 bits
6.2% →
SALET 5.00 bits
6.0% →
CANOE 5.14 bits
4.5% →
COATE 5.05 bits
3.8% →
SLATE 5.07 bits
3.7% →
SLATE 5.40 bits
3.1% →
CADET 4.31 bits
2.9% →
CADET 4.52 bits
2.8% →
SAULT 4.70 bits

Research on PRINK

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

Optimal play

Opening with PRINK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,570 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.82 guesses at best and is rank #1,973 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
PRINK sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).