In the word game Wordle, there can arise a difficult dilemma. You can know all but one letter of the word but there are many possibilities for the missing one.
Find the 5-letter word with the most possible letter exchanges in one spot.
For example:
PRICE
PRIDE
PRIME
PRIZE
Feel free to do the same for other word lengths.
First a little footnote:
An interesting fact about the Wordle word list, either pre-NYTimes or currently: It does not include words that become 5-letter by adding an S to a 4-letter word.
Interesting that I was considering what I think is the answer to make a different word puzzle.
I had tried LATER, and found no matches.
Then SONIC had the O in the correct position but the N somewhere in the word other than the middle.
I tried BOUND, knowing it wasn't ROUND or SOUND. Well the B wasn't right either but the other letters were correctly placed.
The puzzle I was considering submitting had to do with What would be the best word to try next? The unknown first letter could be W, H, P, F or M.
Trying one at a time risked not getting it at all within the limit of 6. Two at a time would seem adequate, but three is better.
So I used, and I'd think would be the best answer, WHIPS. It turns out this merely eliminated W, H and P.
The answer was my next try, FOUND, but it could have been MOUND.
In any case, I think the answer to the current puzzle is 8 words:
ROUND
SOUND
BOUND
WOUND
HOUND
POUND
FOUND
MOUND
in the order I tried (or at least investigated) them.
To see if this is the worst (largest) possible set, I wrote
clearvars, clc
words5=fileread("c:\words\wordlewords.txt");
l=length(words5)/5;
dict=[];
for wordNo=1:l
w=words5(5*wordNo-4:5*wordNo);
dict=[dict;w];
end
mx=0;
for posn=1:5
colList=[1 2 3 4 5];
colList(posn)=[];
dict=sortrows(dict,colList);
inArow=1;prev=repmat(' ',4);
for wordNo=1:l
w=dict(wordNo,:);
if w(5)=='s'
continue
end
ww=w;
w(posn)=[];
if isequal(w,prev)
inArow=inArow+1;
currList=[currList; ww];
else
if inArow>=8
disp(inArow)
disp(currList);
disp(' ')
maxList=currList;
mx=inArow;
end
inArow=1;
currList=ww;
end
prev=w;
end
end
which uses words specific to Wordle. (It's based on the pre-NYTimes word list, published online.) That means no 4-letter words with an S tacked on.
It found one list with 9 members
9
eight
fight
light
might
night
right
sight
tight
wight
and the one with eight members, already mentioned
8
bound
found
hound
mound
pound
round
sound
wound
These were the only two such that were found regardless of which position was variable.
When not limited to Wordle words, larger sets were found, like
11
bared
cared
dared
eared
fared
hared
oared
pared
rared
tared
wared
But all the above varied the first letter. Is it a bug in the program? No ...
12
coded
coked
coled
coned
cooed
coped
cored
coted
coved
cowed
coxed
coyed
8
stade
stage
stake
stale
stane
stare
state
stave
So the largest list is 9 when limited to Wordle words, but 12 when expanded to a larger set of 5-letter words.
12
bight
dight
eight
fight
hight
light
might
night
right
sight
tight
wight
12
bowed
cowed
dowed
jowed
lowed
mowed
rowed
sowed
towed
vowed
wowed
yowed
12
coded
coked
coled
coned
cooed
coped
cored
coted
coved
cowed
coxed
coyed
Those excluded terminal S.
With terminal S allowed:
17
bills
dills
fills
gills
hills
jills
kills
mills
nills
pills
rills
sills
tills
vills
|
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Posted by Charlie
on 2022-04-05 09:54:30 |
First a hunch, then computer search
