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

ARGUS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A watchful guardian.

Noun

An alert, observant person.

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 ARGUS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ARGUS 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 84.6% of games, misses completely in 15.4%, and leaves about 153 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,992 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 ARGUS 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.

4.75 Entropy (bits)
153 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 68% of evaluated openers
1.20 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ARGUS 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
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#4,992 Rank among openers
Opening with ARGUS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.67 average. It ranks #4,992 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
58
3 guesses
910
4 guesses
1,155
5 guesses
211
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
2 vowels
Common:
ARSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
85%
Green tile
23%
All gray
15%

Feedback distribution

ARGUS can come back 96 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

366 answers
266 answers
185 answers
178 answers
136 answers
133 answers
131 answers
100 answers
64 answers
61 answers
60 answers
60 answers
54 answers
45 answers
41 answers
27 answers
26 answers
24 answers
22 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

A1R1G2U1S1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing ARGUS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ARGUS:

15% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
11% chance
Suggested:
CLOTE
8% chance
Suggested:
STILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.4%
TOILE 5.98 bits
11.2%
CLOTE 5.43 bits
7.8%
STILE 5.44 bits
7.5%
TONEY 4.95 bits
5.7%
THALE 4.98 bits
5.6%
COLEY 4.63 bits
5.5%
CLONE 4.91 bits
4.2%
CONTE 4.79 bits
2.7%
SOWNE 4.56 bits
2.6%
TOILE 4.67 bits

Research on ARGUS

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

Optimal play

Opening with ARGUS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,243 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with ARGUS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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 AHRGUHS.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, ARGUS is a kind of giant or pheasant.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
ARGUS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.

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).