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

VIRGE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A wand.

Noun

Obsolete spelling of verge.

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 VIRGE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts VIRGE 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 80.1% of games, misses completely in 19.9%, and leaves about 182 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,776 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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 VIRGE 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.

4.67 Entropy (bits)
182 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 63% of evaluated openers
1.28 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How VIRGE 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.

3.70 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#6,776 Rank among openers
Opening with VIRGE left 1 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 3.70 average. It ranks #6,776 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
72
3 guesses
820
4 guesses
1,222
5 guesses
224
6 guesses
15
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

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EIR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
33%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

VIRGE can come back 108 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

472 answers
241 answers
191 answers
175 answers
169 answers
151 answers
76 answers
75 answers
71 answers
54 answers
53 answers
46 answers
37 answers
29 answers
27 answers
27 answers
24 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
20 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

V4I1R1G2E1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing VIRGE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing VIRGE:

20% chance
Suggested:
SAULT
10% chance
Suggested:
SLANT
8% chance
Suggested:
COAST

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.9%
SAULT 5.90 bits
10.2%
SLANT 5.53 bits
8.0%
COAST 5.35 bits
7.4%
SETAE 4.39 bits
7.1%
SLANT 5.45 bits
6.4%
SLANT 5.31 bits
3.2%
COAST 4.70 bits
3.2%
SALTY 4.13 bits
3.0%
PRINT 4.26 bits
2.3%
COAST 4.34 bits

Research on VIRGE

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

Optimal play

Opening with VIRGE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #6,725 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 VIRGE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, 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.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it VURJ.

Rhymes with SURGE MERGE VERGE PURGE SERGE

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
VIRGE sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

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).