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

RECCO

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Reconnaissance.

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 RECCO performs as a guess

Wordle accepts RECCO 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 81.8% of games, misses completely in 18.2%, and leaves about 194 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,247 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 RECCO 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.

4.39 Entropy (bits)
194 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 44% of evaluated openers
1.56 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How RECCO 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
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#9,247 Rank among openers
Opening with RECCO left 2 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 #9,247 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
51
3 guesses
801
4 guesses
1,217
5 guesses
262
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
2 vowels
Common:
EOR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
22%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

RECCO can come back 83 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

432 answers
322 answers
209 answers
194 answers
174 answers
119 answers
112 answers
94 answers
62 answers
60 answers
52 answers
49 answers
35 answers
32 answers
32 answers
31 answers
29 answers
28 answers
23 answers
22 answers
20 answers
19 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1E1C3C3O1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing RECCO

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing RECCO:

18% chance
Suggested:
SAINT
14% chance
Suggested:
SLANT
9% chance
Suggested:
SLANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.2%
SAINT 6.11 bits
13.6%
SLANT 5.74 bits
8.8%
SLANT 5.22 bits
8.2%
STAIR 4.52 bits
7.3%
SAINT 5.35 bits
5.0%
ARSON 4.30 bits
4.7%
SALTY 4.71 bits
4.0%
SONDE 4.26 bits
2.6%
SLANT 4.74 bits
2.5%
SOWNE 3.64 bits

Research on RECCO

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

Optimal play

Opening with RECCO, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,594 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with RECCO can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.75, 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.

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it REHKOH. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, RECCO is a kind of reconnaissance.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
RECCO 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), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).