QUIRK
Yes, QUIRK was the Wordle answer on October 19, 2022 (Wordle #487).
As an opener, it rules out about 86.5% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /kwɜːk//kwɝk/
- Noun
-
An idiosyncrasy; a slight glitch, a mannerism; something unusual about the manner or style of something or someone.
“The car steers cleanly, but the gearshift has a few quirks.”
- Noun
-
An acute angle dividing a molding; a groove that runs lengthwise between the upper part of a molding and a soffit.
- Verb
-
To (cause to) move with a wry jerk.
“He quirked an eyebrow.”
- Verb
-
To furnish with a quirk or channel.
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: October 19, 2022 (#487).
See the full page for that puzzle: October 19, 2022 (#487).
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 QUIRK performs as a guess
QUIRK 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 71.0% of games, misses completely in 29.0%, and leaves about 321 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,172 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.85 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 QUIRK 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 QUIRK 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 QUIRK in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
QUIRK can come back 53 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 QUIRK; 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 QUIRK
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to QUIRK.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing QUIRK:
Research on QUIRK
Game-tree analysis and word research for QUIRK, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with QUIRK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.89 guesses and ranks #13,700 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 4.05 guesses at best and is rank #6,785 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.85, at or below the proven-optimal 3.89, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, QUIRK is a kind of channel or twist.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- QUIRK sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
In a sentence
That's just a quirk of his.
It was just a quirk of fate.
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).