PSHAW
Yes, PSHAW was the Wordle answer on July 15, 2026 (Wordle #1852).
As an opener, it rules out about 87.4% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈpʃɔː//ˈʃɔː/
- Interjection
-
Used to express disbelief, impatience, irritation, dismissal or contempt.
“Pshaw! I can't believe it!”
- Verb
-
To dismiss something by saying “pshaw”.
Alternative forms: psshaw, pshah, psha
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: July 15, 2026 (#1852).
See the full page for that puzzle: July 15, 2026 (#1852).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How PSHAW performs as a guess
PSHAW is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 72.4% of games, misses completely in 27.6%, and leaves about 299 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,941 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe PSHAW 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How PSHAW 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches PSHAW in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
PSHAW can come back 71 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for PSHAW; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing PSHAW
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to PSHAW.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing PSHAW:
Research on PSHAW
Game-tree analysis and word research for PSHAW, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with PSHAW, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,694 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.91 guesses at best and is rank #4,321 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 3.80, 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
- PSHAW 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.
In a sentence
Pshaw, is that the best you can do?
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).