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

AHURU

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Auchenoceros punctatus, a morid cod found around New Zealand.

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 AHURU performs as a guess

Wordle accepts AHURU 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 78.7% of games, misses completely in 21.3%, and leaves about 245 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,957 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.84 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 AHURU 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.

4.03 Entropy (bits)
245 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 24% of evaluated openers
1.92 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How AHURU 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.

3.84 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#12,957 Rank among openers
Opening with AHURU left 4 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.84 average. It ranks #12,957 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
28
3 guesses
722
4 guesses
1,231
5 guesses
333
6 guesses
36
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

4/5 unique
3 vowels
Common:
ARU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
23%
All gray
21%

Feedback distribution

AHURU can come back 55 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

506 answers
372 answers
299 answers
196 answers
143 answers
86 answers
82 answers
69 answers
65 answers
60 answers
49 answers
45 answers
40 answers
34 answers
31 answers
27 answers
24 answers
24 answers
22 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

A1H4U1R1U1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing AHURU

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing AHURU:

21% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
16% chance
Suggested:
LEANT
13% chance
Suggested:
NOISE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.3%
TOILE 6.08 bits
15.7%
LEANT 5.32 bits
12.6%
NOISE 5.02 bits
8.3%
TRIER 4.29 bits
6.0%
STILE 5.11 bits
3.6%
TOILE 4.85 bits
3.5%
CLOTE 5.03 bits
2.9%
SURER 4.60 bits
2.7%
STONE 4.20 bits
2.5%
STILE 4.97 bits

Research on AHURU

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

Optimal play

Opening with AHURU, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.87 guesses and ranks #13,110 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.03 guesses at best and is rank #6,615 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.84, at or below the proven-optimal 3.87, 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

Three syllables, stress on the second syllable Say it UHHUUROO. 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.