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

CURES

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of cure

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of cure

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

How it sounds

One syllable Say it KYUURZ.

Rhymes with YOURS TOURS MOORS LURES BOORS

Related meanings

Synonyms heal therapeutic remedy

In a sentence

Only death cures all pain.
© tatoeba.org contributor HououinKyouma (CC BY 2.0 FR)
A doctor is one who cures diseases.
© tatoeba.org contributor LdjuherTaqvaylit (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use CURES in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 95.0% 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.

CURES in Connections

1 recorded appearance in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.

How CURES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CURES 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 86.9% of games, misses completely in 13.1%, and leaves about 120 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,026 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 CURES 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.

5.18 Entropy (bits)
120 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CURES 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.

3.62 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#2,026 Rank among openers
Opening with CURES left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.62 average. It ranks #2,026 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
88
3 guesses
937
4 guesses
1,125
5 guesses
183
6 guesses
18

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ERSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
87%
Green tile
34%
All gray
13%

Feedback distribution

CURES can come back 122 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

313 answers
236 answers
166 answers
163 answers
118 answers
113 answers
108 answers
88 answers
64 answers
61 answers
60 answers
54 answers
45 answers
44 answers
42 answers
38 answers
31 answers
30 answers
28 answers
26 answers
26 answers
26 answers
26 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3U1R1E1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing CURES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CURES:

13% chance
Suggested:
TALON
10% chance
Suggested:
LIANE
7% chance
Suggested:
DROIT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.1% →
TALON 5.96 bits
9.9% →
LIANE 5.45 bits
7.0% →
DROIT 5.31 bits
6.8% →
SAINT 5.25 bits
4.9% →
TOILE 3.42 bits
4.7% →
SLANT 4.95 bits
4.5% →
PEART 4.61 bits
3.7% →
ALONE 4.08 bits
2.7% →
DAUNT 4.61 bits
2.6% →
LATCH 4.42 bits

Research on CURES

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

Optimal play

Opening with CURES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,424 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 CURES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.64, 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
CURES 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.

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).