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

TWIGS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of twig

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of twig

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

How it sounds

One syllable Say it TWIHGZ.

Rhymes with RIGGS BIGGS WHIGS FRIGS

Related meanings

Synonyms tumble

In a sentence

He broke some twigs for the fire.
© tatoeba.org contributor IMer (CC BY 2.0 FR)
The ground was covered with dry twigs.
© tatoeba.org contributor IMer (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use TWIGS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 88.8% 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 TWIGS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts TWIGS 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 72.4% of games, misses completely in 27.6%, and leaves about 267 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,446 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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 TWIGS 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.

4.18 Entropy (bits)
267 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.8% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TWIGS 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.

3.69 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#6,446 Rank among openers
Opening with TWIGS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.69 average. It ranks #6,446 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
48
3 guesses
869
4 guesses
1,205
5 guesses
222
6 guesses
10

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
IST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
72%
Green tile
22%
All gray
28%

Feedback distribution

TWIGS can come back 80 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

659 answers
256 answers
206 answers
179 answers
127 answers
105 answers
96 answers
79 answers
75 answers
66 answers
44 answers
44 answers
37 answers
26 answers
24 answers
23 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
9 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1W4I1G2S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing TWIGS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TWIGS:

28% chance
Suggested:
CARLE
11% chance
Suggested:
PARLE
9% chance
Suggested:
CARET

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

27.6% →
CARLE 6.26 bits
10.7% →
PARLE 5.65 bits
8.6% →
CARET 5.47 bits
7.5% →
LINER 5.23 bits
5.3% →
STARE 4.75 bits
4.4% →
ALURE 5.50 bits
4.0% →
CRANE 4.98 bits
3.3% →
DROLE 5.25 bits
3.1% →
PORAE 4.98 bits
2.8% →
RIONE 4.15 bits

Research on TWIGS

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

Optimal play

Opening with TWIGS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,129 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.85 guesses at best and is rank #2,878 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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
TWIGS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.2 of 5).

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).