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

PROSS

PROSS 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

Pronunciation: /ˈpɹɒs/

Noun

A prostitute.

Verb

To sponge or scrounge; to take advantage of a person's generosity.

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 PROSS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PROSS 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 73.7% of games, misses completely in 26.3%, and leaves about 256 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,349 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.75 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 PROSS 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.

4.21 Entropy (bits)
256 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 33% of evaluated openers
1.74 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PROSS 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.

3.75 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#9,349 Rank among openers
Opening with PROSS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.75 average. It ranks #9,349 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
42
3 guesses
816
4 guesses
1,210
5 guesses
264
6 guesses
21
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
1 vowels
Common:
ORS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
74%
Green tile
29%
All gray
26%

Feedback distribution

PROSS can come back 74 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

624 answers
267 answers
209 answers
201 answers
138 answers
120 answers
78 answers
66 answers
59 answers
53 answers
47 answers
44 answers
42 answers
34 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3R1O1S1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing PROSS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PROSS:

26% chance
Suggested:
LIANE
11% chance
Suggested:
TERRA
9% chance
Suggested:
LEANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

26.3%
LIANE 6.17 bits
11.2%
TERRA 5.23 bits
8.8%
LEANT 5.03 bits
8.5%
LEANT 5.52 bits
5.8%
CADIE 5.00 bits
5.1%
TARRE 4.58 bits
3.3%
BLATE 4.60 bits
2.8%
SETAE 4.49 bits
2.5%
ALINE 4.94 bits
2.2%
THALE 4.81 bits

Research on PROSS

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

Optimal play

Opening with PROSS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,589 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.92 guesses at best and is rank #4,658 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.75, 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.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it PRAWS.

Rhymes with CROSS SAUCE GLOSS DROSS

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
PROSS 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); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).