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

PYXIS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 83.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈpɪksɪs/

Noun

A small box.

Noun

A capsule in which the lid separates from the top of the fruit to release the seeds.

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 PYXIS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PYXIS 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 65.5% of games, misses completely in 34.5%, and leaves about 386 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,193 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.82 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 PYXIS 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.

3.57 Entropy (bits)
386 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
83.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 8% of evaluated openers
2.38 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PYXIS 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.

3.82 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#12,193 Rank among openers
Opening with PYXIS 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 3.82 average. It ranks #12,193 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
34
3 guesses
703
4 guesses
1,298
5 guesses
298
6 guesses
20
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
1 vowels
Common:
IS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
66%
Green tile
15%
All gray
34%

Feedback distribution

PYXIS can come back 57 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

820 answers
299 answers
260 answers
215 answers
110 answers
85 answers
64 answers
63 answers
59 answers
58 answers
53 answers
28 answers
24 answers
20 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers
5 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3Y4X8I1S1
Total: 17 points

Words With Friends

Total: 17 points

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

Strategy after playing PYXIS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PYXIS:

35% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
13% chance
Suggested:
STARE
11% chance
Suggested:
TRINE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

34.5%
ROATE 6.11 bits
12.6%
STARE 5.72 bits
11.0%
TRINE 5.52 bits
9.1%
DROLE 4.92 bits
4.6%
CRATE 4.89 bits
3.6%
STILE 4.43 bits
2.7%
CRATE 5.36 bits
2.7%
LATER 4.51 bits
2.5%
SAULT 4.47 bits
2.4%
CARNE 5.03 bits

Research on PYXIS

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

Optimal play

Opening with PYXIS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.86 guesses and ranks #12,892 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.00 guesses at best and is rank #6,183 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.82, at or below the proven-optimal 3.86, 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 PIHKSIHS.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, PYXIS is a kind of fruit or box.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
PYXIS 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 relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).