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

RETIN

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

To coat with tin again.

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it REHTIHN.

Use RETIN in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 95.9% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

How RETIN performs as a guess

Wordle accepts RETIN 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 88.2% of games, misses completely in 11.8%, and leaves about 98 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #907 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.60 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 RETIN 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.

5.44 Entropy (bits)
98 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.9% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How RETIN 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.

3.60 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#907 Rank among openers
Opening with RETIN left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.60 average. It ranks #907 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
88
3 guesses
998
4 guesses
1,067
5 guesses
173
6 guesses
26

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EINRT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
26%
All gray
12%

Feedback distribution

RETIN can come back 134 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

282 answers
180 answers
167 answers
157 answers
97 answers
93 answers
87 answers
85 answers
63 answers
62 answers
58 answers
54 answers
47 answers
46 answers
43 answers
42 answers
40 answers
40 answers
37 answers
36 answers
28 answers
28 answers
27 answers
23 answers
23 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1E1T1I1N1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 6 points

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

Strategy after playing RETIN

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing RETIN:

12% chance
Suggested:
SOULY
8% chance
Suggested:
ALOSE
7% chance
Suggested:
SOLAR

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

11.8% →
SOULY 5.63 bits
7.6% →
ALOSE 5.39 bits
7.0% →
SOLAR 4.46 bits
6.6% →
COALY 5.08 bits
4.1% →
SOULY 5.13 bits
3.9% →
COALY 4.91 bits
3.6% →
SHALT 5.01 bits
3.6% →
SLIMY 4.72 bits
2.6% →
COAST 4.70 bits
2.6% →
SCALE 4.68 bits

Research on RETIN

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

Optimal play

Opening with RETIN, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.62 guesses and ranks #501 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.75 guesses at best and is rank #297 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, at or below the proven-optimal 3.62, 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
RETIN 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 frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).