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

ZARIS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of zari

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 ZARIS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ZARIS 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 85.2% of games, misses completely in 14.8%, and leaves about 156 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,777 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.76 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 ZARIS 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.

4.54 Entropy (bits)
156 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 55% of evaluated openers
1.40 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ZARIS 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.

3.76 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#9,777 Rank among openers
Opening with ZARIS left 3 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 3.76 average. It ranks #9,777 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
41
3 guesses
806
4 guesses
1,212
5 guesses
267
6 guesses
25
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
2 vowels
Common:
AIRS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
85%
Green tile
26%
All gray
15%

Feedback distribution

ZARIS can come back 72 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

352 answers
218 answers
202 answers
201 answers
172 answers
138 answers
138 answers
108 answers
99 answers
83 answers
65 answers
60 answers
50 answers
43 answers
43 answers
33 answers
33 answers
28 answers
28 answers
23 answers
20 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
9 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

Z10A1R1I1S1
Total: 14 points

Words With Friends

Total: 14 points

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

Strategy after playing ZARIS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ZARIS:

15% chance
Suggested:
CLOTE
9% chance
Suggested:
TONER
9% chance
Suggested:
LITHE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.8%
CLOTE 5.77 bits
9.2%
TONER 4.98 bits
8.5%
LITHE 5.15 bits
8.5%
ALATE 5.43 bits
7.2%
STOLE 5.25 bits
5.8%
TRADE 4.64 bits
5.8%
TONEY 4.61 bits
4.5%
THALE 4.81 bits
4.2%
CLINE 4.19 bits
3.5%
STILE 4.41 bits

Research on ZARIS

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

Optimal play

Opening with ZARIS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,855 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.93 guesses at best and is rank #4,804 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.76, at or below the proven-optimal 3.78, 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 ZAHRIHS. Estimated pronunciation

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

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.