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

ZIMBS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of zimb

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

Use ZIMBS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 81.8% 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 ZIMBS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ZIMBS 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 63.9% of games, misses completely in 36.1%, and leaves about 433 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,856 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.84 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 ZIMBS 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.

3.33 Entropy (bits)
433 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
81.8% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ZIMBS 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.

3.84 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#12,856 Rank among openers
Opening with ZIMBS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.84 average. It ranks #12,856 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
31
3 guesses
665
4 guesses
1,329
5 guesses
312
6 guesses
16

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
IS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
64%
Green tile
14%
All gray
36%

Feedback distribution

ZIMBS can come back 54 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

861 answers
389 answers
264 answers
141 answers
133 answers
123 answers
94 answers
42 answers
39 answers
31 answers
30 answers
29 answers
23 answers
21 answers
19 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
11 answers
11 answers
8 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
4 answers
4 answers
4 answers
4 answers
3 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

Z10I1M3B3S1
Total: 18 points

Words With Friends

Total: 20 points

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

Strategy after playing ZIMBS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ZIMBS:

36% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
16% chance
Suggested:
STARE
11% chance
Suggested:
CRANE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

36.1% →
ROATE 6.09 bits
16.3% →
STARE 5.63 bits
11.1% →
CRANE 5.46 bits
5.9% →
ALURE 5.48 bits
5.6% →
RONTE 4.71 bits
5.2% →
CARLE 5.39 bits
3.9% →
STILE 4.43 bits
1.8% →
ROANY 4.29 bits
1.6% →
SPATE 4.53 bits
1.3% →
CRANE 4.41 bits

Research on ZIMBS

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

Optimal play

Opening with ZIMBS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.86 guesses and ranks #13,006 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.98 guesses at best and is rank #5,798 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.84, at or below the proven-optimal 3.86, 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).