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

ZEROS

ZEROS 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 zero

Noun

The decade of the 1800s, 1900s, 2000s, etc. The noughties. The 2000s.

Alternative forms: zeroes

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 ZEROS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ZEROS 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 84.9% of games, misses completely in 15.1%, and leaves about 156 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,047 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.78 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 ZEROS 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.

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

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ZEROS 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.

3.78 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#11,047 Rank among openers
Opening with ZEROS left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.78 average. It ranks #11,047 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
48
3 guesses
748
4 guesses
1,253
5 guesses
266
6 guesses
36
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:
EORS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
85%
Green tile
22%
All gray
15%

Feedback distribution

ZEROS can come back 70 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

358 answers
254 answers
187 answers
184 answers
179 answers
139 answers
120 answers
107 answers
75 answers
73 answers
58 answers
52 answers
51 answers
42 answers
40 answers
40 answers
37 answers
35 answers
32 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

Z10E1R1O1S1
Total: 14 points

Words With Friends

Total: 14 points

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

Strategy after playing ZEROS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ZEROS:

15% chance
Suggested:
PAINT
11% chance
Suggested:
ANILE
8% chance
Suggested:
SAULT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.1%
PAINT 5.69 bits
10.7%
ANILE 5.58 bits
7.9%
SAULT 5.27 bits
7.8%
AINEE 4.44 bits
7.5%
TONAL 4.99 bits
5.9%
TRAIN 5.18 bits
5.1%
PLATE 4.90 bits
4.5%
THALE 4.61 bits
3.2%
ACORN 4.37 bits
3.1%
CLONE 4.31 bits

Research on ZEROS

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

Optimal play

Opening with ZEROS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,741 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 ZEROS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.78; proven optimal play reaches 3.78. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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 ZIHROHZ.

Rhymes with HEROS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, ZEROS is a kind of amount or figure.

Synonyms nothing zip null nil nada cipher

Opposites all some cardinal

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
ZEROS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.7 of 5).

In a sentence

What are the zeros of this parabola?
© tatoeba.org contributor papabear (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I'm apolitical, until I'm offered a check with enough zeros.
© tatoeba.org contributor sangelo (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).