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

WORKY

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

As an opener, it rules out about 87.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈwɜːki//ˈwɜɹki/

Adjective

Characterized by or pertaining to work.

Adjective

Especially of attire: appropriate for work.

Noun

Alternative spelling of workie.

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 WORKY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts WORKY 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 70.9% of games, misses completely in 29.1%, and leaves about 303 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,093 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.79 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 WORKY 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.

4.01 Entropy (bits)
303 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 23% of evaluated openers
1.94 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How WORKY 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.

3.79 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#11,093 Rank among openers
Opening with WORKY left 2 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 3.79 average. It ranks #11,093 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
43
3 guesses
754
4 guesses
1,236
5 guesses
301
6 guesses
18
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:
OR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
71%
Green tile
32%
All gray
29%

Feedback distribution

WORKY can come back 78 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

692 answers
351 answers
181 answers
176 answers
122 answers
117 answers
78 answers
76 answers
48 answers
41 answers
36 answers
36 answers
35 answers
28 answers
28 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
9 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

W4O1R1K5Y4
Total: 15 points

Words With Friends

Total: 14 points

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

Strategy after playing WORKY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing WORKY:

29% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
15% chance
Suggested:
IRATE
8% chance
Suggested:
SLANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

29.1%
SLATE 6.35 bits
14.8%
IRATE 5.28 bits
7.6%
SLANT 5.30 bits
7.4%
SAULT 4.74 bits
5.1%
CLINE 4.76 bits
4.9%
TRADE 4.34 bits
3.3%
SLANT 5.07 bits
3.2%
SAUTE 5.10 bits
2.0%
STOLE 3.60 bits
1.7%
RANSE 3.73 bits

Research on WORKY

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

Optimal play

Opening with WORKY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.81 guesses and ranks #11,058 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 WORKY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.79, at or below the proven-optimal 3.81, 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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it WURKEE. Estimated pronunciation

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

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
WORKY 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), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).