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

CULLY

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

As an opener, it rules out about 84.1% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈkʌli/

Noun

A companion.

Verb

To trick, to impose on, to dupe.

Noun

A person who is easily tricked or imposed on; a dupe, a gullible 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 CULLY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CULLY 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 64.3% of games, misses completely in 35.7%, and leaves about 378 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,763 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.80 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 CULLY 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.

3.82 Entropy (bits)
378 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
84.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 16% of evaluated openers
2.12 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CULLY 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.

3.80 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#11,763 Rank among openers
Opening with CULLY 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 3.80 average. It ranks #11,763 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
44
3 guesses
748
4 guesses
1,215
5 guesses
312
6 guesses
31
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
1 vowels
Common:
LU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
64%
Green tile
35%
All gray
36%

Feedback distribution

CULLY can come back 77 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

847 answers
247 answers
203 answers
156 answers
146 answers
106 answers
75 answers
50 answers
43 answers
42 answers
42 answers
33 answers
28 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
15 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3U1L1L1Y4
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing CULLY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CULLY:

36% chance
Suggested:
ARISE
10% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
9% chance
Suggested:
SARED

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

35.7%
ARISE 6.24 bits
10.4%
TIARE 5.38 bits
8.6%
SARED 4.92 bits
6.6%
TRONE 5.46 bits
6.1%
TIARE 5.54 bits
4.5%
ORATE 5.36 bits
3.2%
TARGE 4.87 bits
2.1%
STOAE 4.76 bits
1.8%
PAISE 4.54 bits
1.8%
FARSE 3.94 bits

Research on CULLY

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

Optimal play

Opening with CULLY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.83 guesses and ranks #12,063 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 CULLY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.80, at or below the proven-optimal 3.83, 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 KUHLEE.

Rhymes with GULLY SULLY

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CULLY 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.

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