Zipf 3 means once per million words of text; each whole point is ten times rarer. Wordillion tiers: Common ≥4.6, Uncommon ≥4.0, Rare ≥3.4, Epic ≥2.8, Legendary ≥2.2, Mythic below. Lists exclude -S plurals.
The 30 rarest Wordle answers so far
Wordle's answer list was built by hand to avoid obscure words, which makes these the outliers: real words that the editors judged fair but that almost nobody writes. They are also worth knowing because Wordillion pays a small relic bonus for an answer that was once a Wordle answer.
| Word | Zipf | Tier | Wordle no. |
|---|---|---|---|
| WOOER | 1.18 | Mythic | #78 |
| ELATE | 1.33 | Mythic | #1533 |
| UNCAP | 1.37 | Mythic | #1940 |
| GUNKY | 1.42 | Mythic | #1721 |
| PARER | 1.55 | Mythic | #454 |
| PRIMP | 1.55 | Mythic | #1243 |
| ABASE | 1.56 | Mythic | #26 |
| CORER | 1.58 | Mythic | #1214 |
| STREW | 1.63 | Mythic | #1937 |
| UNFED | 1.63 | Mythic | #36 |
| GOFER | 1.69 | Mythic | #1497 |
| WAXEN | 1.69 | Mythic | #1675 |
| SNAKY | 1.72 | Mythic | #786 |
| DEMUR | 1.78 | Mythic | #1838 |
| PSHAW | 1.79 | Mythic | #1852 |
| EXULT | 1.80 | Mythic | #168 |
| QUALM | 1.89 | Mythic | #661 |
| GAWKY | 1.91 | Mythic | #375 |
| RIPER | 1.95 | Mythic | #613 |
| EDIFY | 1.96 | Mythic | #1448 |
| CAROM | 1.97 | Mythic | #1756 |
| THRUM | 1.97 | Mythic | #1464 |
| UVULA | 1.98 | Mythic | #1244 |
| GNASH | 2.03 | Mythic | #809 |
| DAUNT | 2.04 | Mythic | #1505 |
| RETCH | 2.04 | Mythic | #158 |
| GEODE | 2.06 | Mythic | #1882 |
| BEFIT | 2.07 | Mythic | #1741 |
| CUBIT | 2.07 | Mythic | #1762 |
| COYLY | 2.08 | Mythic | #409 |
The rarest five-letter words you can legally play
Drawn from the intersection of the standard Wordle guess list and the ENABLE dictionary, restricted to words that appear in the frequency corpus at all (many legal Scrabble words never do). These are Mythic in Wordillion; most are the kind of word you meet once in a lifetime of reading.
| Word | Zipf |
|---|---|
| LYSIN | 1.01 |
| GOOSY | 1.01 |
| VOLTI | 1.01 |
| PRASE | 1.01 |
| AIRER | 1.01 |
| EDUCE | 1.01 |
| DEKED | 1.01 |
| ARGOL | 1.01 |
| TERGA | 1.01 |
| KAMIK | 1.02 |
| HEEZE | 1.02 |
| KININ | 1.02 |
| ABASH | 1.02 |
| SAPID | 1.02 |
| DUNCH | 1.02 |
| CLACH | 1.02 |
| YAWED | 1.02 |
| SLUFF | 1.02 |
| MELIC | 1.03 |
| HOISE | 1.03 |
| RIMED | 1.03 |
| HOKKU | 1.03 |
| THRIP | 1.03 |
| DEFOG | 1.03 |
| INDUE | 1.03 |
| TARDO | 1.03 |
| FILLO | 1.03 |
| ENURE | 1.03 |
| PROSY | 1.03 |
| SKITE | 1.03 |
J, Q, X and Z words that are rare without being obscure
The practical list. These sit between Zipf 2.6 and 3.4, so they pay Epic or Legendary, and Wordillion adds a rare-letter bonus on top. Unlike the lists above, you know most of them already.
| Word | Zipf | Tier |
|---|---|---|
| MEZZO | 2.60 | Legendary |
| EXALT | 2.60 | Legendary |
| JAUNT | 2.60 | Legendary |
| GIZMO | 2.61 | Legendary |
| AFFIX | 2.63 | Legendary |
| JIFFY | 2.64 | Legendary |
| QUINT | 2.64 | Legendary |
| RAJAH | 2.65 | Legendary |
| GLITZ | 2.66 | Legendary |
| JUMPY | 2.67 | Legendary |
| SQUAW | 2.68 | Legendary |
| GHAZI | 2.69 | Legendary |
| GANJA | 2.72 | Legendary |
| HAFIZ | 2.73 | Legendary |
| BEAUX | 2.73 | Legendary |
| ZONAL | 2.74 | Legendary |
| REDUX | 2.74 | Legendary |
| REDOX | 2.75 | Legendary |
| QUASH | 2.75 | Legendary |
| RAZED | 2.79 | Legendary |
| GONZO | 2.80 | Epic |
| BEZEL | 2.80 | Epic |
| LAZAR | 2.80 | Epic |
| VEXED | 2.81 | Epic |
| FJORD | 2.81 | Epic |
| FIZZY | 2.82 | Epic |
| JACKY | 2.82 | Epic |
| GAZED | 2.83 | Epic |
| RAZER | 2.86 | Epic |
| TOPAZ | 2.87 | Epic |
How to use these
Memorising a Mythic list does not help much in a category game, because a prompt still has to ask for the word. The J/Q/X/Z list is different: letter prompts (“contains a Z”) come up constantly, and knowing a dozen words per letter means never settling for the obvious one. Pair it with the category lists and the rare-answer method.
Questions people ask
By corpus frequency, WOOER (Zipf 1.18), followed by ELATE and UNCAP. Rankings depend on the corpus; these use the wordfreq dataset.
The first two lists are drawn from Wordle's own answer and guess lists, so yes. The third list is also entirely legal guesses.
Words that never appear in the frequency corpus have no measurable rarity, so they are left out rather than ranked at zero.