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

WERSH

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Adjective

Insipid; tasteless; delicate; having a pale and sickly look.

Alternative forms: warsh, werche

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 WERSH performs as a guess

Wordle accepts WERSH 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 81.6% of games, misses completely in 18.4%, and leaves about 176 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,821 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 WERSH 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.

4.75 Entropy (bits)
176 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 68% of evaluated openers
1.20 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How WERSH 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
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#6,821 Rank among openers
Opening with WERSH left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.70 average. It ranks #6,821 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
66
3 guesses
866
4 guesses
1,153
5 guesses
246
6 guesses
22
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
1 vowels
Common:
ERS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
28%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

WERSH can come back 109 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

438 answers
272 answers
212 answers
198 answers
165 answers
90 answers
90 answers
56 answers
55 answers
53 answers
48 answers
43 answers
35 answers
32 answers
28 answers
28 answers
28 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

W4E1R1S1H4
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing WERSH

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing WERSH:

18% chance
Suggested:
TALON
11% chance
Suggested:
ALINE
9% chance
Suggested:
IRATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.4%
TALON 5.76 bits
11.5%
ALINE 5.55 bits
8.9%
IRATE 4.29 bits
8.3%
TRAIN 5.16 bits
7.0%
SAINT 5.23 bits
3.8%
PLATE 4.93 bits
3.8%
BLATE 4.45 bits
2.4%
TOUCH 4.07 bits
2.3%
CHANT 4.37 bits
2.2%
LATER 3.83 bits

Research on WERSH

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

Optimal play

Opening with WERSH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,154 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 #3,005 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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 WURSH. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.