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

COURB

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

As an opener, it rules out about 90.9% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

To bend; to bow.

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 COURB performs as a guess

Wordle accepts COURB 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 75.4% of games, misses completely in 24.6%, and leaves about 217 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,195 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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 COURB 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)
217 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 57% of evaluated openers
1.36 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How COURB 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#3,195 Rank among openers
Opening with COURB solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.64 average. It ranks #3,195 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
55
3 guesses
948
4 guesses
1,153
5 guesses
185
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:
ORU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
75%
Green tile
29%
All gray
25%

Feedback distribution

COURB can come back 94 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

583 answers
285 answers
143 answers
119 answers
105 answers
98 answers
77 answers
74 answers
71 answers
62 answers
57 answers
56 answers
42 answers
40 answers
37 answers
30 answers
29 answers
25 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
21 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
17 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3O1U1R1B3
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing COURB

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing COURB:

25% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
12% chance
Suggested:
SATED
6% chance
Suggested:
SLANE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

24.6%
SLATE 6.38 bits
12.0%
SATED 5.40 bits
6.0%
SLANE 5.26 bits
5.0%
SLIME 4.78 bits
4.4%
LAIDE 4.46 bits
4.1%
LEANT 5.19 bits
3.2%
DAINE 4.31 bits
3.1%
SALET 5.19 bits
3.0%
LEAST 4.94 bits
2.6%
SLANT 4.55 bits

Research on COURB

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

Optimal play

Opening with COURB, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,868 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 #2,169 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, 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.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it KAWRB. 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.