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

SWERF

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.1% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Alternative letter-case form of SWERF.

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 SWERF performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SWERF 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 79.5% of games, misses completely in 20.5%, and leaves about 211 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,815 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.74 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.

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

First-turn measures

All four describe SWERF 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.

4.41 Entropy (bits)
211 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 46% of evaluated openers
1.54 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SWERF 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.

3.74 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#8,815 Rank among openers
Opening with SWERF solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.74 average. It ranks #8,815 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
62
3 guesses
793
4 guesses
1,219
5 guesses
264
6 guesses
16
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
1 vowels
Common:
ERS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
26%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

SWERF can come back 88 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

486 answers
332 answers
228 answers
210 answers
148 answers
90 answers
63 answers
62 answers
57 answers
50 answers
50 answers
37 answers
34 answers
33 answers
30 answers
29 answers
28 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
25 answers
22 answers
16 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1W4E1R1F4
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing SWERF

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SWERF:

20% chance
Suggested:
TONAL
14% chance
Suggested:
LIANE
10% chance
Suggested:
PATEE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.5%
TONAL 5.83 bits
14.0%
LIANE 5.38 bits
9.6%
PATEE 4.61 bits
8.8%
BARON 5.01 bits
6.2%
COALY 4.71 bits
3.8%
LASSO 4.73 bits
2.7%
PLATE 4.30 bits
2.6%
LEAST 4.37 bits
2.4%
FLINT 4.84 bits
2.1%
COALY 4.63 bits

Research on SWERF

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

Optimal play

Opening with SWERF, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,504 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.89 guesses at best and is rank #4,027 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.74, at or below the proven-optimal 3.78, 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 SWURF. 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.