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

DURUM

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

As an opener, it rules out about 82.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈdjuːɹəm//ˈdʌ.ɹəm/

Noun

Ellipsis of durum wheat.

“durum pasta”

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 DURUM performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DURUM 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 63.9% of games, misses completely in 36.1%, and leaves about 418 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,724 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 DURUM 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.

3.59 Entropy (bits)
418 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
82.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 9% of evaluated openers
2.36 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DURUM 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
99.87% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#11,724 Rank among openers
Opening with DURUM left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.80 average. It ranks #11,724 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
37
3 guesses
727
4 guesses
1,272
5 guesses
294
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
RU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
64%
Green tile
22%
All gray
36%

Feedback distribution

DURUM can come back 62 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

858 answers
424 answers
129 answers
120 answers
102 answers
101 answers
88 answers
66 answers
46 answers
43 answers
42 answers
37 answers
32 answers
24 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
11 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
6 answers
5 answers
4 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2U1R1U1M3
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing DURUM

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DURUM:

36% chance
Suggested:
SLANE
18% chance
Suggested:
SAICE
5% chance
Suggested:
MOILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

36.1%
SLANE 6.27 bits
17.9%
SAICE 5.40 bits
5.4%
MOILE 5.29 bits
5.1%
ANILE 5.47 bits
4.3%
CASTE 5.05 bits
4.3%
SLANT 5.19 bits
3.7%
SALTY 4.39 bits
2.8%
IRADE 4.62 bits
1.9%
TOILE 4.84 bits
1.8%
MAIRE 4.32 bits

Research on DURUM

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

Optimal play

Opening with DURUM, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.84 guesses and ranks #12,444 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 DURUM can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.80, at or below the proven-optimal 3.84, 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 DUURUHM.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, DURUM is a kind of wheat.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
DURUM 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 relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).