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

SMIZE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /smaɪz/

Verb

To smile with one's eyes.

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 SMIZE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SMIZE 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 79.9% of games, misses completely in 20.1%, and leaves about 209 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,630 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.80 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 SMIZE 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.

4.34 Entropy (bits)
209 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 41% of evaluated openers
1.61 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SMIZE 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.

3.80 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#11,630 Rank among openers
Opening with SMIZE left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.80 average. It ranks #11,630 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
55
3 guesses
683
4 guesses
1,312
5 guesses
280
6 guesses
21
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
2 vowels
Common:
EIS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
38%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

SMIZE can come back 75 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

476 answers
359 answers
182 answers
176 answers
150 answers
106 answers
97 answers
88 answers
67 answers
53 answers
51 answers
49 answers
48 answers
45 answers
43 answers
32 answers
29 answers
29 answers
27 answers
24 answers
23 answers
18 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1M3I1Z10E1
Total: 16 points

Words With Friends

Total: 17 points

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

Strategy after playing SMIZE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SMIZE:

20% chance
Suggested:
TALON
15% chance
Suggested:
ALTER
8% chance
Suggested:
ANTIC

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.1%
TALON 5.78 bits
15.1%
ALTER 5.39 bits
7.7%
ANTIC 5.07 bits
7.4%
GRACE 4.49 bits
6.3%
ROANY 4.74 bits
4.5%
MURAL 5.00 bits
4.1%
CLARY 4.57 bits
3.7%
TRASH 4.91 bits
2.8%
DINER 4.60 bits
2.2%
PEART 3.86 bits

Research on SMIZE

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

Optimal play

Opening with SMIZE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.79 guesses and ranks #10,356 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.94 guesses at best and is rank #5,116 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.80; proven optimal play reaches 3.79. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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 SMYZ. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SMIZE sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).