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

ZINCS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of zinc

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of zinc

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

Use ZINCS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 87.4% 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 ZINCS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ZINCS 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 70.6% of games, misses completely in 29.4%, and leaves about 301 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,750 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 ZINCS 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.

3.93 Entropy (bits)
301 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ZINCS 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
99.83% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#9,750 Rank among openers
Opening with ZINCS left 4 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 3.76 average. It ranks #9,750 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
28
3 guesses
787
4 guesses
1,288
5 guesses
223
6 guesses
24

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
INS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
71%
Green tile
20%
All gray
29%

Feedback distribution

ZINCS can come back 59 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

702 answers
320 answers
177 answers
167 answers
133 answers
103 answers
91 answers
77 answers
72 answers
61 answers
57 answers
42 answers
41 answers
27 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
21 answers
20 answers
18 answers
18 answers
14 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

Z10I1N1C3S1
Total: 16 points

Words With Friends

Total: 18 points

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

Strategy after playing ZINCS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ZINCS:

29% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
13% chance
Suggested:
STARE
7% chance
Suggested:
ROATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

29.4% →
ROATE 6.12 bits
13.4% →
STARE 5.78 bits
7.4% →
ROATE 5.28 bits
7.0% →
TRADE 5.57 bits
5.6% →
CARLE 5.52 bits
4.3% →
DROLE 4.70 bits
3.8% →
GRATE 4.73 bits
3.2% →
THALE 4.88 bits
3.0% →
STILE 4.46 bits
2.6% →
ROATE 4.58 bits

Research on ZINCS

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

Optimal play

Opening with ZINCS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,759 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 #4,825 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 3.80, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (1.9 of 5).

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).