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

VILLI

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

As an opener, it rules out about 73.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of villus

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 VILLI performs as a guess

Wordle accepts VILLI 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 51.9% of games, misses completely in 48.1%, and leaves about 640 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #14,709 of 14,855 openers, averaging 4.01 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 VILLI 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.

2.91 Entropy (bits)
640 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
73.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 1% of evaluated openers
3.04 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How VILLI 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.

4.01 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.76 Spread of game lengths
#14,709 Rank among openers
Opening with VILLI left 4 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.76 means those games clustered within about 0.76 of a guess of the 4.01 average. It ranks #14,709 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
29
3 guesses
529
4 guesses
1,231
5 guesses
505
6 guesses
56
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

3/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
IL

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
52%
Green tile
20%
All gray
48%

Feedback distribution

VILLI can come back 54 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

1143 answers
308 answers
286 answers
134 answers
75 answers
67 answers
59 answers
48 answers
21 answers
18 answers
17 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
4 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

V4I1L1L1I1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing VILLI

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing VILLI:

48% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
13% chance
Suggested:
TRINE
12% chance
Suggested:
SOARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

48.1%
ROATE 6.15 bits
13.0%
TRINE 5.64 bits
12.0%
SOARE 5.31 bits
5.6%
RONTE 4.75 bits
3.2%
SAYNE 4.81 bits
2.8%
CRANE 4.35 bits
2.5%
REATE 4.92 bits
2.0%
POTAE 4.61 bits
0.9%
STOAE 3.17 bits
0.8%
SHAKE 3.42 bits

Research on VILLI

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

Optimal play

Opening with VILLI, a proven-optimal strategy averages 4.01 guesses and ranks #14,703 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 VILLI can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 4.01; proven optimal play reaches 4.01. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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

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

Rhymes with SILLY BILLY CHILE CHILI WILLY

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, VILLI is a kind of process.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
VILLI 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 relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).