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

ABUTS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.9% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /əˈbʌts/

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of abut

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 ABUTS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ABUTS 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 79.9% of games, misses completely in 20.1%, and leaves about 193 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,282 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.67 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe ABUTS 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.

4.55 Entropy (bits)
193 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 55% of evaluated openers
1.40 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ABUTS 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.

3.67 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#5,282 Rank among openers
Opening with ABUTS 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 3.67 average. It ranks #5,282 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
59
3 guesses
883
4 guesses
1,189
5 guesses
209
6 guesses
13
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:
ASTU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
20%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

ABUTS can come back 91 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

477 answers
330 answers
173 answers
147 answers
114 answers
114 answers
101 answers
80 answers
79 answers
70 answers
58 answers
52 answers
46 answers
43 answers
33 answers
32 answers
28 answers
26 answers
22 answers
21 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

A1B3U1T1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing ABUTS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ABUTS:

20% chance
Suggested:
NOIRE
14% chance
Suggested:
CARLE
7% chance
Suggested:
PLIER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.1%
NOIRE 5.93 bits
13.9%
CARLE 5.59 bits
7.3%
PLIER 5.36 bits
6.2%
THEIR 5.31 bits
4.8%
PLIER 4.86 bits
4.8%
PARLE 4.87 bits
4.3%
CARLE 4.72 bits
3.4%
SOREL 4.65 bits
3.3%
DROLE 5.07 bits
2.9%
PLORE 4.88 bits

Research on ABUTS

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

Optimal play

Opening with ABUTS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,176 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.83 guesses at best and is rank #2,304 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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 second syllable Say it UHBUHTS.

Rhymes with WHATS BUTTS SHUTS SLUTS PUTTS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, ABUTS is a kind of meet.

Synonyms MARCH edge border butt

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
ABUTS sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.

In a sentence

My family's property abuts a wildlife preserve.
© tatoeba.org contributor Ee_un (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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