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

RICEY

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.9% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɹaɪsi/

Adjective

Containing rice.

Adjective

Resembling or characteristic of rice.

Alternative forms: ricy

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 RICEY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts RICEY 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 89.3% of games, misses completely in 10.7%, and leaves about 121 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,380 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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 RICEY 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.

5.03 Entropy (bits)
121 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 85% of evaluated openers
0.92 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How RICEY 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#3,380 Rank among openers
Opening with RICEY left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.64 average. It ranks #3,380 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
72
3 guesses
933
4 guesses
1,130
5 guesses
194
6 guesses
22
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
2 vowels
Common:
EIR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
89%
Green tile
38%
All gray
11%

Feedback distribution

RICEY can come back 108 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

270 answers
255 answers
178 answers
157 answers
136 answers
119 answers
104 answers
101 answers
88 answers
80 answers
62 answers
59 answers
52 answers
49 answers
47 answers
39 answers
35 answers
34 answers
32 answers
27 answers
23 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1I1C3E1Y4
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing RICEY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing RICEY:

11% chance
Suggested:
SLANT
11% chance
Suggested:
SLANT
7% chance
Suggested:
ARSON

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

11.4%
SLANT 5.76 bits
10.7%
SLANT 6.10 bits
7.5%
ARSON 5.04 bits
6.6%
SAULT 4.79 bits
5.7%
SLANT 5.64 bits
5.0%
ORATE 4.64 bits
4.4%
SETAE 3.95 bits
4.3%
SAULT 4.98 bits
3.7%
SLANT 4.53 bits
3.4%
SLANE 4.60 bits

Research on RICEY

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

Optimal play

Opening with RICEY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,757 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 RICEY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, 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

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

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

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
RICEY 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 frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).