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

ZAYIN

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈzɑːjɪn//ˈzaɪ.ɪn/

Noun

The seventh letter of many Semitic alphabets (Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic and others).

Alternative forms: zain, zayn, zay

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

Etymology

Borrowed from Hebrew זַיִן (zayin).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use ZAYIN in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 89.9% 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

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

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 ZAYIN performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ZAYIN 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 77.4% of games, misses completely in 22.6%, and leaves about 241 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,142 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.81 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 ZAYIN 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.

4.13 Entropy (bits)
241 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.9% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ZAYIN 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.

3.81 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#12,142 Rank among openers
Opening with ZAYIN left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.81 average. It ranks #12,142 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
34
3 guesses
705
4 guesses
1,297
5 guesses
295
6 guesses
21

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AIN

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
77%
Green tile
24%
All gray
23%

Feedback distribution

ZAYIN can come back 64 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

539 answers
366 answers
238 answers
153 answers
134 answers
126 answers
92 answers
73 answers
68 answers
55 answers
49 answers
44 answers
43 answers
39 answers
34 answers
30 answers
27 answers
22 answers
22 answers
20 answers
19 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

Z10A1Y4I1N1
Total: 17 points

Words With Friends

Total: 17 points

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

Strategy after playing ZAYIN

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ZAYIN:

23% chance
Suggested:
TORSE
15% chance
Suggested:
REAST
10% chance
Suggested:
SLIER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.6% →
TORSE 6.24 bits
15.4% →
REAST 5.57 bits
10.0% →
SLIER 5.25 bits
6.4% →
DROLE 4.79 bits
5.6% →
CLOTE 4.69 bits
5.3% →
TOUSE 5.13 bits
3.9% →
STIRE 4.42 bits
3.1% →
ROUET 4.70 bits
2.9% →
SLAKE 4.46 bits
2.3% →
SLART 3.58 bits

Research on ZAYIN

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

Optimal play

Opening with ZAYIN, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.83 guesses and ranks #12,000 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.00 guesses at best and is rank #6,150 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.81, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT).