5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess B tier for first-turn info

CURSE

Yes, CURSE was the Wordle answer on April 2, 2025 (Wordle #1383).

As an opener, it rules out about 95.3% of possible answers.

Open Solver with CURSE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /kɜːs//kɝs/

Noun

A supernatural detriment or hindrance; a bane.

Noun

A prayer or imprecation that harm may befall someone.

Verb

To place a curse upon (a person or object).

Verb

To call upon divine or supernatural power to send injury upon; to imprecate evil upon; to execrate.

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: April 2, 2025 (#1383).

See the full page for that puzzle: April 2, 2025 (#1383).

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

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How verification and withdrawal work

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How CURSE performs as a guess

CURSE is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 86.8% of games, misses completely in 13.2%, and leaves about 112 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,669 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.61 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

C___E C in the 1st position and E in the 5th position C__S_ C in the 1st position and S in the 4th position _U__E U in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in CURSE.

First-turn measures

All four describe CURSE 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.

5.33 Entropy (bits)
112 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
95.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 96% of evaluated openers
0.62 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CURSE 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.

3.61 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#1,669 Rank among openers
Opening with CURSE left 4 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 3.61 average. It ranks #1,669 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
91
3 guesses
936
4 guesses
1,131
5 guesses
170
6 guesses
21
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:
ERSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
87%
Green tile
40%
All gray
13%

Example solver route

R O A T E
P R I S M
C U R S E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches CURSE in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

CURSE can come back 127 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

313 answers
203 answers
172 answers
165 answers
123 answers
119 answers
64 answers
61 answers
59 answers
55 answers
54 answers
53 answers
52 answers
50 answers
42 answers
35 answers
34 answers
33 answers
27 answers
27 answers
26 answers
26 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3U1R1S1E1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

TALON LADEN ARIEL DROIT SLANT AGILE

Strategy after playing CURSE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CURSE:

13% chance
Suggested:
TALON
9% chance
Suggested:
LADEN
7% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.2% →
TALON 5.96 bits
8.6% →
LADEN 5.21 bits
7.2% →
ARIEL 3.91 bits
7.0% →
DROIT 5.30 bits
5.2% →
SLANT 5.09 bits
5.0% →
AGILE 4.66 bits
2.7% →
DAUNT 4.61 bits
2.6% →
LATCH 4.42 bits
2.5% →
MEALY 3.63 bits
2.3% →
STEEL 4.51 bits

Research on CURSE

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

Optimal play

Opening with CURSE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.62 guesses and ranks #665 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.78 guesses at best and is rank #843 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.61, at or below the proven-optimal 3.62, 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 KURS.

Rhymes with WORSE NURSE VERSE PURSE TERSE

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, CURSE is a kind of profanity or act.

Synonyms damn SWEAR oath swearing condemnation torment

Opposites BLESS

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CURSE sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 12 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A2); among the first words English learners study.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 8, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 47 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sound (3.3 of 5).

In a sentence

It's the curse of life.
© tatoeba.org contributor rul (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Do I curse too much?
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).