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

ZOBOS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 76.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of zobo

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 ZOBOS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ZOBOS 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 56.9% of games, misses completely in 43.1%, and leaves about 555 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #14,377 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.94 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 ZOBOS 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.

3.06 Entropy (bits)
555 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
76.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 2% of evaluated openers
2.89 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ZOBOS 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.

3.94 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#14,377 Rank among openers
Opening with ZOBOS left 4 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 3.94 average. It ranks #14,377 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
34
3 guesses
569
4 guesses
1,282
5 guesses
437
6 guesses
28
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
OS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
57%
Green tile
21%
All gray
43%

Feedback distribution

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

1023 answers
427 answers
175 answers
168 answers
118 answers
67 answers
64 answers
39 answers
39 answers
27 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
18 answers
14 answers
14 answers
11 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
4 answers
4 answers
4 answers
3 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

Z10O1B3O1S1
Total: 16 points

Words With Friends

Total: 17 points

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

Strategy after playing ZOBOS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ZOBOS:

43% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
18% chance
Suggested:
STALE
7% chance
Suggested:
TALER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

43.1%
RAILE 6.17 bits
18.0%
STALE 5.59 bits
7.4%
TALER 4.51 bits
7.1%
CRANE 5.39 bits
5.0%
RAILE 5.46 bits
2.8%
REACT 4.22 bits
2.7%
MARLE 4.59 bits
1.6%
TALER 4.75 bits
1.6%
URITE 4.04 bits
1.1%
BLAER 4.18 bits

Research on ZOBOS

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

Optimal play

Opening with ZOBOS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.94 guesses and ranks #14,358 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.08 guesses at best and is rank #7,015 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.94, at or below the proven-optimal 3.94, 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.

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it ZOHBOHS. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.