Possible answer Not used yet F tier for first-turn info

WRYLY

WRYLY is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɹaɪli/

Adverb

In a wry or sarcastic manner; ironically.

Adverb

Of a facial expression, contortedly.

Alternative forms: wrily

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

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it RYLEE.

Rhymes with RILEY KYLIE SLYLY SHYLY KILEY

Use WRYLY in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 85.4% 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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

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 WRYLY performs as a guess

WRYLY is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 71.3% of games, misses completely in 28.7%, and leaves about 347 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,484 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.87 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 WRYLY 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.

3.54 Entropy (bits)
347 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
85.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How WRYLY 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.

3.87 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#13,484 Rank among openers
Opening with WRYLY solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.87 average. It ranks #13,484 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
29
3 guesses
643
4 guesses
1,316
5 guesses
339
6 guesses
26

Composition

4/5 unique
0 vowels
Common:
LR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
71%
Green tile
34%
All gray
29%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I C K
D R Y L Y
W R Y L Y

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches WRYLY in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

WRYLY can come back 53 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

685 answers
373 answers
339 answers
212 answers
189 answers
86 answers
71 answers
62 answers
38 answers
38 answers
32 answers
31 answers
25 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

W4R1Y4L1Y4
Total: 14 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing WRYLY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing WRYLY:

29% chance
Suggested:
SAINE
16% chance
Suggested:
STOAE
14% chance
Suggested:
SAICE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

28.7% →
SAINE 6.24 bits
15.6% →
STOAE 5.36 bits
14.2% →
SAICE 5.46 bits
8.9% →
COATE 5.06 bits
7.9% →
SAUNT 4.70 bits
3.6% →
SAUTE 5.00 bits
3.0% →
CLEAR 4.39 bits
2.6% →
TARRE 4.39 bits
1.6% →
DAINE 3.59 bits
1.6% →
STANE 4.81 bits

Research on WRYLY

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

Optimal play

Opening with WRYLY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.91 guesses and ranks #14,038 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.06 guesses at best and is rank #6,889 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.87, at or below the proven-optimal 3.91, 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
WRYLY 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).