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

RIVEL

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.1% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɹɪvəl/

Verb

To shrivel, wrinkle (up).

Verb

To cause to be wrinkled, to shrivel.

Noun

A kind of small dumpling made from egg and wheat flour, often eaten in soup, especially among the Pennsylvania Dutch and other Germans.

Noun

A wrinkle; a rimple.

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 RIVEL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts RIVEL 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 85.7% of games, misses completely in 14.3%, and leaves about 140 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,042 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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 RIVEL 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.

4.91 Entropy (bits)
140 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 78% of evaluated openers
1.04 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How RIVEL 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.

3.69 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#6,042 Rank among openers
Opening with RIVEL left 2 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 3.69 average. It ranks #6,042 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
79
3 guesses
849
4 guesses
1,172
5 guesses
235
6 guesses
17
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:
EILR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
29%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

RIVEL can come back 112 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

339 answers
231 answers
216 answers
170 answers
138 answers
131 answers
116 answers
99 answers
74 answers
68 answers
62 answers
61 answers
52 answers
36 answers
28 answers
25 answers
24 answers
24 answers
22 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1I1V4E1L1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing RIVEL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing RIVEL:

14% chance
Suggested:
SAUNT
10% chance
Suggested:
COAST
9% chance
Suggested:
TEASE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.3%
SAUNT 5.79 bits
9.7%
COAST 5.49 bits
9.1%
TEASE 5.51 bits
7.2%
COAST 5.08 bits
5.8%
COAST 4.96 bits
5.5%
SAINT 5.50 bits
4.9%
BLATE 4.71 bits
4.2%
COAST 3.69 bits
3.1%
PITHY 3.90 bits
2.9%
SAINT 4.57 bits

Research on RIVEL

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

Optimal play

Opening with RIVEL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,919 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 RIVEL can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, 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

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

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

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.