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

ROWIE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 95.1% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A savoury bread roll originating from Aberdeen, Scotland.

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 ROWIE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ROWIE 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 87.5% of games, misses completely in 12.5%, and leaves about 115 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,726 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.67 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 ROWIE 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.

5.08 Entropy (bits)
115 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 87% of evaluated openers
0.87 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ROWIE 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.

3.67 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#4,726 Rank among openers
Opening with ROWIE solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.67 average. It ranks #4,726 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
51
3 guesses
927
4 guesses
1,150
5 guesses
211
6 guesses
15
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
3 vowels
Common:
EIOR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
38%
All gray
12%

Feedback distribution

ROWIE can come back 92 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

297 answers
200 answers
158 answers
148 answers
145 answers
123 answers
109 answers
108 answers
86 answers
72 answers
62 answers
61 answers
57 answers
44 answers
38 answers
37 answers
34 answers
33 answers
29 answers
28 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
21 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1O1W4I1E1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing ROWIE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ROWIE:

13% chance
Suggested:
SLANT
8% chance
Suggested:
SLANT
7% chance
Suggested:
SLANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

12.5%
SLANT 5.78 bits
8.4%
SLANT 5.60 bits
6.7%
SLANT 5.20 bits
6.2%
SAULT 5.36 bits
6.1%
SETAE 4.45 bits
5.2%
SHART 5.11 bits
4.6%
SALTY 4.55 bits
4.5%
SLANT 5.14 bits
3.6%
ARSON 4.12 bits
3.0%
SLANT 4.79 bits

Research on ROWIE

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

Optimal play

Opening with ROWIE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,748 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 ROWIE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, 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 ROHEE. 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.