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

CUPID

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

As an opener, it rules out about 88.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈkjuːpɪd//ˈkjupɪd/

Noun

A putto carrying a bow and arrow, representing Cupid or love.

Noun

Any of various lycaenid butterflies of the genera Chilades, Cupido and Everes.

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 CUPID performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CUPID 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 70.0% of games, misses completely in 30.0%, and leaves about 285 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,290 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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 CUPID 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.

4.27 Entropy (bits)
285 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 37% of evaluated openers
1.68 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CUPID 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.

3.66 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#4,290 Rank among openers
Opening with CUPID left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.66 average. It ranks #4,290 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
52
3 guesses
916
4 guesses
1,181
5 guesses
192
6 guesses
12
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:
IU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
70%
Green tile
27%
All gray
30%

Feedback distribution

CUPID can come back 89 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

712 answers
270 answers
135 answers
128 answers
115 answers
106 answers
105 answers
95 answers
63 answers
56 answers
44 answers
42 answers
31 answers
26 answers
25 answers
23 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3U1P3I1D2
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing CUPID

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CUPID:

30% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
11% chance
Suggested:
TRINE
6% chance
Suggested:
SLART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

30.0%
TARSE 6.38 bits
11.4%
TRINE 5.41 bits
5.7%
SLART 5.25 bits
5.4%
STARE 5.64 bits
4.8%
DROLE 5.42 bits
4.5%
THALE 5.15 bits
4.4%
SOARE 5.22 bits
4.0%
SAGER 4.44 bits
2.7%
SLART 4.96 bits
2.4%
DROLE 4.43 bits

Research on CUPID

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

Optimal play

Opening with CUPID, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #4,395 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 CUPID can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.69, 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 KYOOPIHD.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CUPID is a kind of emblem.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CUPID sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 2 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.4 of 5).

In a sentence

Well, Cupid is a terrible sniper.
© tatoeba.org contributor saeb (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Cupid had shot his arrow right into my heart.
© tatoeba.org contributor Tom9358 (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).