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

ECRUS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of ecru

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

Related meanings

Synonyms BEIGE

Use ECRUS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 93.8% 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 ECRUS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ECRUS 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 148 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,628 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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 ECRUS 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.

4.79 Entropy (bits)
148 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.8% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ECRUS 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#5,628 Rank among openers
Opening with ECRUS left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.68 average. It ranks #5,628 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
72
3 guesses
883
4 guesses
1,147
5 guesses
224
6 guesses
25

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ERSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
87%
Green tile
15%
All gray
13%

Feedback distribution

ECRUS can come back 102 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

313 answers
293 answers
215 answers
166 answers
163 answers
136 answers
112 answers
110 answers
64 answers
54 answers
45 answers
44 answers
43 answers
42 answers
39 answers
39 answers
36 answers
33 answers
33 answers
31 answers
22 answers
22 answers
18 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

E1C3R1U1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing ECRUS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ECRUS:

13% chance
Suggested:
TALON
12% chance
Suggested:
LIANE
9% chance
Suggested:
AINEE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.1% →
TALON 5.96 bits
12.3% →
LIANE 5.38 bits
9.0% →
AINEE 4.39 bits
7.0% →
DROIT 5.31 bits
6.8% →
SAINT 5.25 bits
5.7% →
SLANT 5.00 bits
4.7% →
CHAIN 5.21 bits
4.6% →
GUILT 4.65 bits
2.7% →
THALE 4.59 bits
2.3% →
SLANT 4.09 bits

Research on ECRUS

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

Optimal play

Opening with ECRUS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,176 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.84 guesses at best and is rank #2,538 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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.

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