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

ZAIRE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 95.5% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˌzɑˈɪə(ɹ)//ˌzaɪˈɪə(ɹ)/

Noun

The unit of currency of Zaire from 1967 to 1998.

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 ZAIRE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ZAIRE 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 88.7% of games, misses completely in 11.3%, and leaves about 106 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,380 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.75 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 ZAIRE 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.

5.04 Entropy (bits)
106 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.5% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 85% of evaluated openers
0.90 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ZAIRE 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.

3.75 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.74 Spread of game lengths
#9,380 Rank among openers
Opening with ZAIRE left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.74 means those games clustered within about 0.74 of a guess of the 3.75 average. It ranks #9,380 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
58
3 guesses
806
4 guesses
1,183
5 guesses
278
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
3 vowels
Common:
AEIR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
89%
Green tile
42%
All gray
11%

Feedback distribution

ZAIRE can come back 87 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

269 answers
170 answers
161 answers
137 answers
136 answers
120 answers
118 answers
98 answers
89 answers
87 answers
77 answers
67 answers
54 answers
42 answers
42 answers
41 answers
41 answers
41 answers
37 answers
35 answers
35 answers
34 answers
33 answers
32 answers
31 answers
29 answers
22 answers
20 answers
20 answers
20 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

Z10A1I1R1E1
Total: 14 points

Words With Friends

Total: 14 points

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

Strategy after playing ZAIRE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ZAIRE:

11% chance
Suggested:
SLOTH
7% chance
Suggested:
SLEET
7% chance
Suggested:
SLANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

11.3%
SLOTH 5.52 bits
7.2%
SLEET 5.32 bits
6.8%
SLANT 5.24 bits
5.8%
SPLIT 4.66 bits
5.7%
SORER 4.07 bits
5.1%
TROOP 4.49 bits
5.0%
SONLY 4.52 bits
4.1%
SOULY 4.65 bits
3.7%
SLANT 4.67 bits
3.7%
CLEAT 4.65 bits

Research on ZAIRE

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

Optimal play

Opening with ZAIRE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,092 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 ZAIRE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.75, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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 second syllable Say it ZYIHR.

Rhymes with CLEAR CHEER SHEER QUEER STEER

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, ZAIRE is a kind of unit.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
ZAIRE 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 relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).