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

CUTIS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈkjutəs//ˈkjutɪs//ˈkjuːtɪs/

Noun

The true skin, underlying the epidermis.

Noun

The peridium of some fungi.

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

Etymology

From Latin cutis (“living skin”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Related meanings

Synonyms skin

Use CUTIS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 92.0% 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.

How CUTIS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts CUTIS 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 77.3% of games, misses completely in 22.7%, and leaves about 190 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,082 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 CUTIS 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.

4.75 Entropy (bits)
190 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How CUTIS 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
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#2,082 Rank among openers
Opening with CUTIS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.62 average. It ranks #2,082 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
61
3 guesses
980
4 guesses
1,118
5 guesses
178
6 guesses
16

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ISTU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
77%
Green tile
27%
All gray
23%

Feedback distribution

CUTIS can come back 100 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

541 answers
202 answers
182 answers
144 answers
109 answers
91 answers
79 answers
76 answers
75 answers
70 answers
69 answers
55 answers
49 answers
46 answers
42 answers
32 answers
30 answers
25 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
20 answers
20 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3U1T1I1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing CUTIS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing CUTIS:

23% chance
Suggested:
LEARN
8% chance
Suggested:
ANILE
8% chance
Suggested:
PARLE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.7% →
LEARN 6.05 bits
8.5% →
ANILE 5.26 bits
7.6% →
PARLE 5.59 bits
6.0% →
TREAT 5.40 bits
4.6% →
STARE 4.88 bits
3.8% →
ROAKE 5.10 bits
3.3% →
GLARE 5.06 bits
3.2% →
MARLE 4.47 bits
3.1% →
GRONE 4.43 bits
2.9% →
HAOLE 5.00 bits

Research on CUTIS

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

Optimal play

Opening with CUTIS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #3,983 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 CUTIS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
CUTIS sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).