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

SERFS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of serf

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

How it sounds

One syllable Say it SURFS.

In a sentence

See how the serfs work the ground?
© tatoeba.org contributor NikiTricky (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Do you see how the serfs work the ground?
© tatoeba.org contributor jan_Ketalija (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use SERFS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 90.3% 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

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

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 SERFS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SERFS 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 77.8% of games, misses completely in 22.2%, and leaves about 230 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,841 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.81 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 SERFS 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.

4.21 Entropy (bits)
230 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.3% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SERFS 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.

3.81 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#11,841 Rank among openers
Opening with SERFS left 1 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 3.81 average. It ranks #11,841 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
35
3 guesses
731
4 guesses
1,263
5 guesses
304
6 guesses
20

Composition

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ERS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
33%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

SERFS can come back 69 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

529 answers
318 answers
226 answers
218 answers
151 answers
109 answers
94 answers
72 answers
67 answers
56 answers
54 answers
50 answers
36 answers
27 answers
25 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
19 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1E1R1F4S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing SERFS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SERFS:

22% chance
Suggested:
TONAL
13% chance
Suggested:
ANILE
9% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.2% →
TONAL 5.81 bits
13.3% →
ANILE 5.52 bits
9.5% →
TRAIN 5.20 bits
9.1% →
CADET 4.47 bits
6.3% →
COALY 4.70 bits
4.6% →
THALE 4.51 bits
3.9% →
PLATE 4.77 bits
3.0% →
WAIST 4.60 bits
2.8% →
COALY 4.57 bits
2.3% →
RATEL 4.10 bits

Research on SERFS

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

Optimal play

Opening with SERFS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.83 guesses and ranks #11,833 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.98 guesses at best and is rank #5,854 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.81, at or below the proven-optimal 3.83, 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
SERFS 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 (2.9 of 5).

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).