Possible answer Not used yet B tier for first-turn info

RALPH

RALPH is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.

As an opener, it rules out about 93.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ɹælf/

Verb

To vomit.

Noun

A raven.

Alternative forms: rauf, rolf

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

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 RALPH performs as a guess

RALPH 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 84.6% of games, misses completely in 15.4%, and leaves about 148 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,681 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.61 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 RALPH 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.

4.86 Entropy (bits)
148 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
93.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 76% of evaluated openers
1.08 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How RALPH 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.

3.61 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#1,681 Rank among openers
Opening with RALPH solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.61 average. It ranks #1,681 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
60
3 guesses
984
4 guesses
1,122
5 guesses
177
6 guesses
10
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:
ALR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
85%
Green tile
27%
All gray
15%

Example solver route

R O A T E
C H I L D
R A L P H

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches RALPH in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

RALPH can come back 103 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

366 answers
283 answers
181 answers
142 answers
142 answers
117 answers
114 answers
84 answers
76 answers
56 answers
50 answers
48 answers
46 answers
46 answers
40 answers
39 answers
36 answers
31 answers
27 answers
26 answers
24 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1A1L1P3H4
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing RALPH

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing RALPH:

15% chance
Suggested:
NOISE
12% chance
Suggested:
TOISE
8% chance
Suggested:
TOILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.4%
NOISE 6.05 bits
11.9%
TOISE 5.49 bits
7.6%
TOILE 5.05 bits
6.0%
STONE 5.39 bits
6.0%
TRACE 4.84 bits
4.9%
FLANE 4.49 bits
4.8%
TONEY 4.64 bits
3.5%
TOISE 5.45 bits
3.2%
SIENT 5.43 bits
2.4%
POISE 4.57 bits

Research on RALPH

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

Optimal play

Opening with RALPH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,546 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.77 guesses at best and is rank #651 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.61, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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 RALF.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
RALPH sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 13 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.

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).