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

ZYGAL

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

As an opener, it rules out about 85.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Adjective

shaped like a yoke, or like the letter H

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 ZYGAL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ZYGAL 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 69.2% of games, misses completely in 30.8%, and leaves about 337 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,061 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.81 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 ZYGAL 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.

3.75 Entropy (bits)
337 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
85.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 13% of evaluated openers
2.20 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ZYGAL 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.

3.81 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#12,061 Rank among openers
Opening with ZYGAL left 1 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 3.81 average. It ranks #12,061 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
41
3 guesses
681
4 guesses
1,329
5 guesses
283
6 guesses
19
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
1 vowels
Common:
AL

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
69%
Green tile
15%
All gray
31%

Feedback distribution

ZYGAL can come back 63 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

731 answers
384 answers
193 answers
165 answers
129 answers
102 answers
86 answers
64 answers
64 answers
57 answers
47 answers
45 answers
31 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
22 answers
15 answers
12 answers
12 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers
5 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

Z10Y4G2A1L1
Total: 18 points

Words With Friends

Total: 19 points

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

Strategy after playing ZYGAL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ZYGAL:

31% chance
Suggested:
TOISE
16% chance
Suggested:
CRATE
8% chance
Suggested:
SLICE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

30.8%
TOISE 6.17 bits
16.2%
CRATE 5.62 bits
8.1%
SLICE 5.23 bits
7.0%
SIRED 4.73 bits
5.4%
SLATE 4.81 bits
4.3%
RIONE 5.39 bits
3.6%
TARSE 4.40 bits
2.7%
SOWER 4.20 bits
2.7%
CEDAR 4.48 bits
2.4%
DULLY 3.80 bits

Research on ZYGAL

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

Optimal play

Opening with ZYGAL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.86 guesses and ranks #12,980 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.99 guesses at best and is rank #5,961 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.81, 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.

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it ZYGUHL. 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.