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

ZOMBI

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

As an opener, it rules out about 82.0% of possible answers.

Open Solver with ZOMBI Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Uncommon spelling of zombie.

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 ZOMBI performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ZOMBI 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 65.2% of games, misses completely in 34.8%, and leaves about 427 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,511 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.87 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

_O__I O in the 2nd position and I in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in ZOMBI.

First-turn measures

All four describe ZOMBI 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.

3.32 Entropy (bits)
427 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
82.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 4% of evaluated openers
2.62 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ZOMBI 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.

3.87 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#13,511 Rank among openers
Opening with ZOMBI left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.87 average. It ranks #13,511 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
32
3 guesses
628
4 guesses
1,325
5 guesses
350
6 guesses
17
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:
IO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
65%
Green tile
15%
All gray
35%

Feedback distribution

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

827 answers
441 answers
261 answers
178 answers
113 answers
106 answers
50 answers
47 answers
47 answers
34 answers
32 answers
28 answers
26 answers
23 answers
22 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
6 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers
4 answers
4 answers
4 answers
3 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

Z10O1M3B3I1
Total: 18 points

Words With Friends

Total: 20 points

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

Try next

REAST TRINE CRATE TALER CARLE RIONE

Strategy after playing ZOMBI

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ZOMBI:

35% chance
Suggested:
REAST
19% chance
Suggested:
TRINE
11% chance
Suggested:
CRATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

34.8% →
REAST 6.29 bits
18.6% →
TRINE 5.48 bits
11.0% →
CRATE 5.31 bits
7.5% →
TALER 4.67 bits
4.8% →
TALER 5.44 bits
4.5% →
CARLE 5.43 bits
2.1% →
RIONE 4.06 bits
2.0% →
CARLE 4.44 bits
2.0% →
RANSE 4.44 bits
1.4% →
URATE 3.87 bits

Research on ZOMBI

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

Optimal play

Opening with ZOMBI, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.89 guesses and ranks #13,574 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.01 guesses at best and is rank #6,366 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.87, at or below the proven-optimal 3.89, 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 ZAHMBEE. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, ZOMBI is a kind of spirit or god.

Synonyms zombie

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
ZOMBI sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).