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

VESTA

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈvɛstə/

Noun

A short match, made of wood or wax.

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

Etymology

From Middle English Vesta, from Latin Vesta, related to Ancient Greek ἑστία (hestía, “to dwell”) and Ἑστία (Hestía, “Hestia”), all from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wes-; see also Old High German and Old English wesan (“to be”), Gothic wisan, Sanskrit वसति (vasati, “abide dwell”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it VEHSTUH.

Rhymes with TESTA FESTA PESTA

In a sentence

Vesta was the goddess of the hearth and home.
© tatoeba.org contributor Hybrid (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use VESTA in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 94.0% 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 VESTA performs as a guess

Wordle accepts VESTA 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 85.5% of games, misses completely in 14.5%, and leaves about 144 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,534 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 VESTA 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.

4.82 Entropy (bits)
144 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How VESTA 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
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#6,534 Rank among openers
Opening with VESTA left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.69 average. It ranks #6,534 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
67
3 guesses
812
4 guesses
1,261
5 guesses
199
6 guesses
14

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AEST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
22%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

VESTA can come back 92 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

345 answers
257 answers
236 answers
139 answers
121 answers
109 answers
96 answers
92 answers
89 answers
82 answers
75 answers
66 answers
42 answers
41 answers
40 answers
39 answers
38 answers
32 answers
32 answers
29 answers
27 answers
20 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

V4E1S1T1A1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing VESTA

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing VESTA:

14% chance
Suggested:
COULD
11% chance
Suggested:
DROLE
10% chance
Suggested:
CAROL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.5% →
COULD 5.56 bits
10.8% →
DROLE 5.26 bits
9.9% →
CAROL 5.26 bits
5.8% →
LARGE 4.70 bits
5.1% →
SPOIL 4.86 bits
4.6% →
COURT 5.10 bits
4.0% →
SPIRE 4.70 bits
3.9% →
TALON 4.33 bits
3.7% →
GENRE 4.11 bits
3.4% →
SCALP 4.50 bits

Research on VESTA

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

Optimal play

Opening with VESTA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #7,090 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 VESTA can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.73, 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
VESTA 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).