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

WRICK

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A painful muscular spasm in the neck or back

Verb

To twist; turn

Verb

To wrench; strain

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

Etymology

From Middle English wricken, probably from Middle Dutch wricken (Modern Dutch wrikken (“to wriggle”)) or Middle Low German wricken (“to move jerkily; sprain”), from Proto-Germanic *wrigōną (“to wriggle”), from Proto-Indo-European *wreyḱ- (“to turn, wrap, tie”), from *wer- (“to turn, bend”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Related meanings

Synonyms turn rick TWIST wrench kink

Use WRICK in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 87.7% 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 WRICK performs as a guess

Wordle accepts WRICK 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 71.0% of games, misses completely in 29.0%, and leaves about 293 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,003 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 WRICK 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.

4.14 Entropy (bits)
293 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.7% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How WRICK 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
100% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#7,003 Rank among openers
Opening with WRICK solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.70 average. It ranks #7,003 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
43
3 guesses
859
4 guesses
1,218
5 guesses
224
6 guesses
10

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
IR

Feedback chances

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

Feedback distribution

WRICK can come back 79 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

691 answers
337 answers
205 answers
122 answers
115 answers
111 answers
81 answers
57 answers
52 answers
46 answers
46 answers
44 answers
42 answers
29 answers
28 answers
26 answers
24 answers
23 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

W4R1I1C3K5
Total: 14 points

Words With Friends

Total: 15 points

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

Strategy after playing WRICK

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing WRICK:

29% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
14% chance
Suggested:
SALET
9% chance
Suggested:
LEANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

29.0% →
SLATE 6.36 bits
14.1% →
SALET 5.43 bits
8.6% →
LEANT 5.18 bits
5.1% →
SLANE 5.36 bits
4.8% →
HAOLE 5.44 bits
4.7% →
SPATE 4.80 bits
3.4% →
RIVET 4.48 bits
2.4% →
LEANT 4.59 bits
2.2% →
CANOE 4.79 bits
1.9% →
STALE 4.81 bits

Research on WRICK

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

Optimal play

Opening with WRICK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.76 guesses and ranks #8,839 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.88 guesses at best and is rank #3,735 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 3.76, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0).