RIVER
RIVER is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.
As an opener, it rules out about 89.8% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈɹɪvəː/[ˈɹʷɪvəː]/ˈɾɪvəː/
- Noun
-
A large and often winding stream which drains a land mass, carrying water down from higher areas to a lower point, oftentimes ending in another body of water, such as an ocean or in an inland sea.
“Occasionally rivers overflow their banks and cause floods.”
- Noun
-
Any large flow of a liquid in a single body.
“a river of blood”
- Verb
-
To improve one’s hand to beat another player on the final card in a poker game.
“Johnny rivered me by drawing that ace of spades.”
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Not used yetNo past answer date found.
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How RIVER performs as a guess
RIVER is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 77.0% of games, misses completely in 23.0%, and leaves about 242 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,122 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.79 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe RIVER 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How RIVER 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches RIVER in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
RIVER can come back 81 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for RIVER; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing RIVER
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to RIVER.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing RIVER:
Research on RIVER
Game-tree analysis and word research for RIVER, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with RIVER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.81 guesses and ranks #11,261 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 RIVER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.79, at or below the proven-optimal 3.81, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, RIVER is a kind of stream.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- RIVER sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 107 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Learner level
- Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A1); among the first words English learners study.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 5, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 95 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.6 of 5).
In a sentence
We are from the river.
Time is like a river.
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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).