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

WAZIR

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Vizier.

Noun

A fairy chess piece that moves one square orthogonally.

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

Etymology

Borrowed from Arabic وَزِير (wazīr, “helper, aide, minister”, literally “one who bears (the burden of office)”). Doublet of vizier.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the second syllable Say it WAHZIHR.

Rhymes with CLEAR CHEER SHEER QUEER STEER

Use WAZIR in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 90.6% 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 WAZIR performs as a guess

Wordle accepts WAZIR 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 79.4% of games, misses completely in 20.6%, and leaves about 224 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,907 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.81 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 WAZIR 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.

4.16 Entropy (bits)
224 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.6% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How WAZIR 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.

3.81 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#11,907 Rank among openers
Opening with WAZIR left 3 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 3.81 average. It ranks #11,907 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
33
3 guesses
724
4 guesses
1,269
5 guesses
312
6 guesses
13

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AIR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
29%
All gray
21%

Feedback distribution

WAZIR can come back 65 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

491 answers
294 answers
257 answers
242 answers
171 answers
149 answers
86 answers
84 answers
72 answers
40 answers
39 answers
36 answers
36 answers
34 answers
28 answers
25 answers
23 answers
21 answers
19 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
13 answers
13 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

W4A1Z10I1R1
Total: 17 points

Words With Friends

Total: 17 points

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

Strategy after playing WAZIR

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing WAZIR:

21% chance
Suggested:
STOLE
12% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
11% chance
Suggested:
SIENT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.6% →
STOLE 5.92 bits
12.3% →
SLATE 5.73 bits
10.8% →
SIENT 5.34 bits
10.2% →
SCOTE 5.42 bits
7.2% →
TONEY 4.53 bits
6.2% →
TRACE 4.82 bits
3.6% →
TOUSE 3.86 bits
3.5% →
SPITE 4.40 bits
3.0% →
CLOTE 4.68 bits
1.7% →
COREY 3.87 bits

Research on WAZIR

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

Optimal play

Opening with WAZIR, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.84 guesses and ranks #12,306 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 WAZIR can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.81, at or below the proven-optimal 3.84, 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
WAZIR 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).