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

TIKKA

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /tɪk.ə//tiː.kə/

Noun

A marinade made from various aromatic spices usually with a yoghurt base; often used in Indian cuisine prior to grilling in a tandoor.

Noun

Alternative form of tilak (“Hindu caste mark on forehead”).

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

Etymology

Borrowed from Hindustani टिक्का (ṭikkā, “piece”) / ٹِکّہ (ṭikka), ultimately from Classical Persian تکه (tikka).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use TIKKA in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 87.5% 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 TIKKA performs as a guess

Wordle accepts TIKKA 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 74.9% of games, misses completely in 25.1%, and leaves about 298 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,261 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 TIKKA 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.

3.77 Entropy (bits)
298 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.5% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TIKKA 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
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#13,261 Rank among openers
Opening with TIKKA left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.86 average. It ranks #13,261 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
35
3 guesses
653
4 guesses
1,302
5 guesses
341
6 guesses
21

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AIT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
75%
Green tile
19%
All gray
25%

Feedback distribution

TIKKA can come back 56 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

598 answers
454 answers
201 answers
190 answers
168 answers
123 answers
84 answers
79 answers
57 answers
45 answers
41 answers
38 answers
37 answers
37 answers
28 answers
25 answers
23 answers
21 answers
15 answers
10 answers
10 answers
8 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers
6 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers
3 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1I1K5K5A1
Total: 13 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing TIKKA

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TIKKA:

25% chance
Suggested:
SOLER
19% chance
Suggested:
CARLE
8% chance
Suggested:
CRINE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.1% →
SOLER 5.96 bits
19.0% →
CARLE 5.52 bits
8.4% →
CRINE 5.28 bits
8.0% →
SOREL 5.56 bits
7.0% →
SCALE 4.99 bits
5.2% →
SONDE 4.59 bits
3.5% →
DRAIN 4.43 bits
3.3% →
SLIER 4.54 bits
2.4% →
SHOER 4.89 bits
1.9% →
MIRTH 3.36 bits

Research on TIKKA

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

Optimal play

Opening with TIKKA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.87 guesses and ranks #13,302 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 #6,450 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 3.87, 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
TIKKA 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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).