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

RIGOR

RIGOR is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɹɪɡə//ˈɹɪɡɚ//ˈɹəɡə/

Noun

US spelling of rigour.

Noun

Ellipsis of rigor mortis.

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

Etymology

From Old French, from Latin rigor (“stiffness, rigidity, rigor, cold, harshness”), from rigere (“to be rigid”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

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

Rhymes with VIGOR

Related meanings

Synonyms severity validity hardship stiffness hardness

In a sentence

Rigor mortis has set in.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Rigor mortis has yet to set in.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use RIGOR in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 89.6% 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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

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 RIGOR performs as a guess

RIGOR is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 74.4% of games, misses completely in 25.6%, and leaves about 249 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,524 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.73 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 RIGOR 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.

4.25 Entropy (bits)
249 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
89.6% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How RIGOR 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.

3.73 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#8,524 Rank among openers
Opening with RIGOR left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.73 average. It ranks #8,524 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
44
3 guesses
823
4 guesses
1,214
5 guesses
260
6 guesses
10

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
IOR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
74%
Green tile
26%
All gray
26%

Example solver route

R O A T E
R H I N O
R I G O R

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches RIGOR in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

RIGOR can come back 82 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

611 answers
251 answers
230 answers
223 answers
107 answers
105 answers
84 answers
72 answers
63 answers
61 answers
40 answers
39 answers
38 answers
38 answers
34 answers
33 answers
24 answers
20 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1I1G2O1R1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing RIGOR

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing RIGOR:

26% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
11% chance
Suggested:
CLOTE
10% chance
Suggested:
TRACE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.6% →
SLATE 6.41 bits
10.5% →
CLOTE 5.17 bits
9.6% →
TRACE 5.62 bits
9.4% →
SLATE 5.54 bits
4.5% →
CRATE 4.57 bits
4.4% →
THALE 4.20 bits
3.5% →
PRATE 4.54 bits
3.0% →
SAULT 4.27 bits
2.6% →
SALUE 5.07 bits
2.6% →
SLANT 4.55 bits

Research on RIGOR

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

Optimal play

Opening with RIGOR, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,508 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 RIGOR can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
RIGOR 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.9 of 5).

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).