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

RINKS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.9% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of rink

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of rink

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 RINKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts RINKS 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 80.9% of games, misses completely in 19.1%, and leaves about 193 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,387 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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 RINKS 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.

4.53 Entropy (bits)
193 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 54% of evaluated openers
1.42 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How RINKS 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.

3.66 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#4,387 Rank among openers
Opening with RINKS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.67 means those games clustered within about 0.67 of a guess of the 3.66 average. It ranks #4,387 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
44
3 guesses
929
4 guesses
1,175
5 guesses
194
6 guesses
11
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:
INRS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
81%
Green tile
20%
All gray
19%

Feedback distribution

RINKS can come back 84 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

454 answers
344 answers
228 answers
128 answers
116 answers
101 answers
83 answers
78 answers
71 answers
64 answers
57 answers
56 answers
55 answers
44 answers
30 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
18 answers
18 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1I1N1K5S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing RINKS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing RINKS:

19% chance
Suggested:
OLATE
14% chance
Suggested:
COATE
10% chance
Suggested:
SLATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.1%
OLATE 6.02 bits
14.5%
COATE 5.60 bits
9.6%
SLATE 5.87 bits
5.4%
CLADE 5.30 bits
4.9%
LADEN 4.94 bits
4.3%
STRAE 4.95 bits
3.5%
PALET 4.44 bits
3.3%
PRATE 4.64 bits
3.0%
LEANT 4.70 bits
2.7%
CAGEY 4.54 bits

Research on RINKS

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

Optimal play

Opening with RINKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #5,026 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.83 guesses at best and is rank #2,285 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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 RIHNGKS.

Rhymes with LINKS SINKS KINKS PINKS WINKS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, RINKS is a kind of building.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
RINKS sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.7 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).