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

SHIRS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.5% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of shir

Noun

plural of shir

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 SHIRS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SHIRS 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 75.8% of games, misses completely in 24.2%, and leaves about 249 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,525 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.75 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 SHIRS 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.

4.22 Entropy (bits)
249 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.5% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 34% of evaluated openers
1.72 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SHIRS 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.

3.75 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#9,525 Rank among openers
Opening with SHIRS 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 3.75 average. It ranks #9,525 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
40
3 guesses
838
4 guesses
1,164
5 guesses
286
6 guesses
24
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

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
IRS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
33%
All gray
24%

Feedback distribution

SHIRS can come back 74 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

574 answers
380 answers
196 answers
156 answers
100 answers
95 answers
82 answers
82 answers
69 answers
58 answers
42 answers
39 answers
36 answers
35 answers
35 answers
33 answers
31 answers
31 answers
24 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
13 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1H4I1R1S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing SHIRS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SHIRS:

24% chance
Suggested:
ALONE
16% chance
Suggested:
CANOE
8% chance
Suggested:
TILDE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

24.2%
ALONE 6.11 bits
16.0%
CANOE 5.24 bits
8.3%
TILDE 5.15 bits
6.6%
LEANT 5.31 bits
4.2%
HAUTE 4.97 bits
4.0%
ALONE 5.03 bits
3.5%
DIANE 4.47 bits
3.5%
LEAST 5.11 bits
2.9%
BEATY 4.83 bits
2.4%
PLATE 3.90 bits

Research on SHIRS

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

Optimal play

Opening with SHIRS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.81 guesses and ranks #11,030 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.97 guesses at best and is rank #5,661 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.75, 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.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it SHURZ. 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.