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

WURST

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /wɝst//vɝst//vʊɹst/

Noun

A German- or Austrian-style sausage.

Alternative forms: würst

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 WURST performs as a guess

Wordle accepts WURST 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 78.0% of games, misses completely in 22.0%, and leaves about 199 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,622 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.63 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 WURST 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.

4.70 Entropy (bits)
199 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 65% of evaluated openers
1.25 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How WURST 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.

3.63 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#2,622 Rank among openers
Opening with WURST left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.63 average. It ranks #2,622 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
54
3 guesses
974
4 guesses
1,130
5 guesses
177
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:
RSTU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
32%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

WURST can come back 99 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

523 answers
324 answers
148 answers
144 answers
78 answers
77 answers
73 answers
69 answers
69 answers
66 answers
61 answers
46 answers
40 answers
37 answers
34 answers
32 answers
28 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
23 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

W4U1R1S1T1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing WURST

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing WURST:

22% chance
Suggested:
LIANE
14% chance
Suggested:
LAIDE
6% chance
Suggested:
PLANE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.0%
LIANE 6.24 bits
13.6%
LAIDE 5.35 bits
6.2%
PLANE 5.48 bits
6.1%
TITLE 5.26 bits
3.3%
MAILE 4.14 bits
3.2%
LIANE 4.78 bits
3.1%
CLONE 4.86 bits
2.9%
LIANE 4.57 bits
2.9%
CANOE 4.78 bits
2.8%
AINEE 4.52 bits

Research on WURST

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

Optimal play

Opening with WURST, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,593 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 WURST can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.63, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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 WURST.

Rhymes with FIRST WORST BURST HURST DURST

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
WURST 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).