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

XYLAN

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A polysaccharide, consisting of xylose residues, found in the cell walls of some algae and plants.

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 XYLAN performs as a guess

Wordle accepts XYLAN 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 74.8% of games, misses completely in 25.2%, and leaves about 261 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,561 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.80 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.

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

First-turn measures

All four describe XYLAN 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.

4.02 Entropy (bits)
261 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 24% of evaluated openers
1.92 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How XYLAN 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.

3.80 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#11,561 Rank among openers
Opening with XYLAN 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 3.80 average. It ranks #11,561 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
35
3 guesses
745
4 guesses
1,258
5 guesses
288
6 guesses
26
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:
ALN

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
75%
Green tile
17%
All gray
25%

Feedback distribution

XYLAN can come back 61 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

599 answers
335 answers
204 answers
197 answers
145 answers
128 answers
77 answers
75 answers
56 answers
54 answers
51 answers
45 answers
38 answers
36 answers
34 answers
33 answers
26 answers
24 answers
23 answers
20 answers
17 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

X8Y4L1A1N1
Total: 15 points

Words With Friends

Total: 16 points

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

Strategy after playing XYLAN

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing XYLAN:

25% chance
Suggested:
TOISE
14% chance
Suggested:
CRATE
9% chance
Suggested:
SLIER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.2%
TOISE 6.17 bits
14.1%
CRATE 5.64 bits
8.6%
SLIER 5.12 bits
8.3%
TOISE 5.55 bits
6.1%
DORSE 4.74 bits
5.4%
SLATE 4.68 bits
3.2%
TARSE 4.52 bits
3.2%
TIARE 4.44 bits
2.4%
CEDAR 4.44 bits
2.3%
SOWER 4.66 bits

Research on XYLAN

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

Optimal play

Opening with XYLAN, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.83 guesses and ranks #12,084 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.97 guesses at best and is rank #5,737 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.80, at or below the proven-optimal 3.83, 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 ZYLUHN. Estimated pronunciation

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

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
XYLAN 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).