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

SHWAS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of shwa

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

Use SHWAS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 84.0% 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 SHWAS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SHWAS 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 67.3% of games, misses completely in 32.7%, and leaves about 381 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,369 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.86 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 SHWAS 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.

3.66 Entropy (bits)
381 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
84.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SHWAS 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.

3.86 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.74 Spread of game lengths
#13,369 Rank among openers
Opening with SHWAS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.74 means those games clustered within about 0.74 of a guess of the 3.86 average. It ranks #13,369 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
37
3 guesses
686
4 guesses
1,224
5 guesses
378
6 guesses
28

Composition

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
AS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
67%
Green tile
28%
All gray
33%

Feedback distribution

SHWAS can come back 65 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

779 answers
459 answers
174 answers
120 answers
119 answers
94 answers
75 answers
59 answers
58 answers
56 answers
45 answers
32 answers
30 answers
23 answers
20 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
10 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1H4W4A1S1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing SHWAS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SHWAS:

33% chance
Suggested:
RIONE
19% chance
Suggested:
TRINE
7% chance
Suggested:
TOILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

32.7% →
RIONE 5.97 bits
19.3% →
TRINE 5.32 bits
7.3% →
TOILE 5.10 bits
5.0% →
RATEL 4.66 bits
5.0% →
CONTE 5.16 bits
3.9% →
RUOTE 5.45 bits
3.1% →
LEANT 4.60 bits
2.5% →
TARSE 4.50 bits
2.4% →
DRONE 5.00 bits
2.3% →
CARET 4.71 bits

Research on SHWAS

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

Optimal play

Opening with SHWAS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.89 guesses and ranks #13,693 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.02 guesses at best and is rank #6,488 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.86, at or below the proven-optimal 3.89, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT).