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

BLURS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /blɜːz//blɝz/

Noun

plural of blur

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of blur

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it BLURZ.

Rhymes with SPURS SLURS STIRS PURRS

Related meanings

Synonyms obscure confuse dim SMEAR slur fuzz

Opposites FOCUS

In a sentence

This blurs the line between news and advertising.
© tatoeba.org contributor Spamster (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use BLURS in a puzzle

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

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

How BLURS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BLURS 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 82.0% of games, misses completely in 18.0%, and leaves about 193 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,976 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.65 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 BLURS 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.

4.58 Entropy (bits)
193 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.9% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BLURS 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.

3.65 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#3,976 Rank among openers
Opening with BLURS 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 3.65 average. It ranks #3,976 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
66
3 guesses
903
4 guesses
1,178
5 guesses
193
6 guesses
13

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
LRSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
27%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

BLURS can come back 98 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

429 answers
357 answers
238 answers
203 answers
87 answers
83 answers
80 answers
68 answers
67 answers
60 answers
43 answers
42 answers
40 answers
38 answers
37 answers
37 answers
34 answers
31 answers
29 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
15 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3L1U1R1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing BLURS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BLURS:

18% chance
Suggested:
CANOE
15% chance
Suggested:
CADET
10% chance
Suggested:
STANE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.0% →
CANOE 6.03 bits
15.0% →
CADET 5.44 bits
10.0% →
STANE 5.56 bits
8.5% →
LADLE 5.19 bits
3.6% →
CONTE 4.71 bits
3.5% →
ATONE 4.95 bits
3.4% →
STRAE 4.66 bits
2.9% →
SALLE 4.69 bits
2.8% →
COATE 4.69 bits
2.5% →
RIVAL 4.31 bits

Research on BLURS

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

Optimal play

Opening with BLURS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #5,134 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.81 guesses at best and is rank #1,543 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.65, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BLURS 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.2 of 5).

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).