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

SWIRE

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /swaɪə/

Noun

A hollow between two hills or peaks, especially with a road running through it; a vale.

Noun

The neck.

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

Etymology

From Middle English swire, from Old English swēora, from Proto-Germanic *swerhô.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it SWYR.

Rhymes with SHIRE SKIER SPIRE AFIRE QUIRE

Use SWIRE in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 95.0% 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 SWIRE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SWIRE 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 85.9% of games, misses completely in 14.1%, and leaves about 120 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,381 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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 SWIRE 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.

5.16 Entropy (bits)
120 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SWIRE 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.

3.66 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#4,381 Rank among openers
Opening with SWIRE left 2 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 3.66 average. It ranks #4,381 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
87
3 guesses
858
4 guesses
1,188
5 guesses
207
6 guesses
12

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EIRS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
41%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

SWIRE can come back 119 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

336 answers
189 answers
159 answers
157 answers
151 answers
126 answers
112 answers
69 answers
65 answers
64 answers
51 answers
42 answers
41 answers
39 answers
38 answers
34 answers
32 answers
30 answers
29 answers
28 answers
28 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
27 answers
26 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1W4I1R1E1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing SWIRE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SWIRE:

14% chance
Suggested:
COALY
8% chance
Suggested:
LEANT
7% chance
Suggested:
CAROM

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.1% →
COALY 5.69 bits
7.9% →
LEANT 5.39 bits
6.7% →
CAROM 5.14 bits
6.6% →
OATER 4.16 bits
6.3% →
ANTIC 5.05 bits
5.3% →
EAGLE 4.50 bits
4.7% →
COALY 4.63 bits
2.9% →
LASSO 4.61 bits
2.7% →
COATE 3.78 bits
2.7% →
SLANT 4.28 bits

Research on SWIRE

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

Optimal play

Opening with SWIRE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,247 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with SWIRE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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
SWIRE 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.

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).