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

WHISS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 81.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

Obsolete form of whiz.

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 WHISS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts WHISS 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 61.1% of games, misses completely in 38.9%, and leaves about 444 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,085 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.85 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 WHISS 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.

3.52 Entropy (bits)
444 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
81.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 7% of evaluated openers
2.42 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How WHISS 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.

3.85 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#13,085 Rank among openers
Opening with WHISS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.85 average. It ranks #13,085 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
39
3 guesses
678
4 guesses
1,267
5 guesses
345
6 guesses
25
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

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
IS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
61%
Green tile
25%
All gray
39%

Feedback distribution

WHISS can come back 68 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

924 answers
276 answers
247 answers
152 answers
141 answers
68 answers
65 answers
46 answers
44 answers
41 answers
40 answers
34 answers
34 answers
22 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
11 answers
11 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

W4H4I1S1S1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing WHISS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing WHISS:

39% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
12% chance
Suggested:
LINER
10% chance
Suggested:
PARTE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

38.9%
ROATE 5.99 bits
11.6%
LINER 5.22 bits
10.4%
PARTE 5.59 bits
6.4%
CRANE 4.86 bits
5.9%
CARTE 5.40 bits
2.9%
LAREE 4.76 bits
2.7%
DROLE 4.85 bits
1.9%
STEIN 4.35 bits
1.9%
PLANE 4.14 bits
1.7%
PARTE 4.72 bits

Research on WHISS

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

Optimal play

Opening with WHISS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.89 guesses and ranks #13,716 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.04 guesses at best and is rank #6,619 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.85, at or below the proven-optimal 3.89, 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 WIHS. 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.