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

ZINKY

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Adjective

Alternative form of zincy.

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

Use ZINKY in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 80.7% 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 ZINKY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ZINKY 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 60.3% of games, misses completely in 39.7%, and leaves about 461 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,996 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.90 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 ZINKY 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.

3.39 Entropy (bits)
461 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
80.7% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ZINKY 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.

3.90 Avg guesses
99.79% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#13,996 Rank among openers
Opening with ZINKY left 5 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.90 average. It ranks #13,996 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
26
3 guesses
634
4 guesses
1,268
5 guesses
390
6 guesses
31

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
IN

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
60%
Green tile
27%
All gray
40%

Feedback distribution

ZINKY can come back 53 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

947 answers
264 answers
222 answers
203 answers
112 answers
104 answers
72 answers
62 answers
41 answers
36 answers
32 answers
28 answers
25 answers
23 answers
23 answers
20 answers
20 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers
13 answers
10 answers
9 answers
7 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
4 answers
4 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

Z10I1N1K5Y4
Total: 21 points

Words With Friends

Total: 21 points

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

Strategy after playing ZINKY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ZINKY:

40% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
11% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
9% chance
Suggested:
SORAL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

39.7% →
TARSE 6.37 bits
11.1% →
TARSE 5.42 bits
9.3% →
SORAL 4.89 bits
8.5% →
SOARE 5.47 bits
4.7% →
RATEL 4.75 bits
4.4% →
LEANT 4.59 bits
3.0% →
CASER 4.89 bits
2.6% →
CARTE 4.79 bits
1.7% →
SCALE 4.19 bits
1.5% →
LAYER 4.74 bits

Research on ZINKY

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

Optimal play

Opening with ZINKY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.89 guesses and ranks #13,612 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.06 guesses at best and is rank #6,872 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.90; proven optimal play reaches 3.89. 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.

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