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

EMBUS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 88.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ɛmˈbʌs//ɪmˈbʌs/

Verb

to put (troops) onto a bus

Verb

to board or get on a bus

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 EMBUS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts EMBUS 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 78.6% of games, misses completely in 21.4%, and leaves about 266 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,779 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.78 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 EMBUS 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.

4.05 Entropy (bits)
266 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 25% of evaluated openers
1.90 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How EMBUS 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.

3.78 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#10,779 Rank among openers
Opening with EMBUS left 1 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 3.78 average. It ranks #10,779 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
58
3 guesses
704
4 guesses
1,311
5 guesses
261
6 guesses
19
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:
ESU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
11%
All gray
21%

Feedback distribution

EMBUS can come back 77 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

509 answers
484 answers
216 answers
192 answers
134 answers
90 answers
71 answers
69 answers
62 answers
60 answers
59 answers
49 answers
32 answers
25 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
17 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

E1M3B3U1S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing EMBUS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing EMBUS:

21% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL
20% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
9% chance
Suggested:
SLANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.4%
TRAIL 5.98 bits
20.4%
ARIEL 5.22 bits
9.1%
SLANT 5.19 bits
8.1%
STRAE 4.84 bits
5.6%
TRULY 4.63 bits
3.8%
COMMA 4.93 bits
3.0%
RANEE 4.71 bits
2.9%
LAREE 4.64 bits
2.6%
TRUCE 4.46 bits
2.5%
STUNK 4.23 bits

Research on EMBUS

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

Optimal play

Opening with EMBUS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,630 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.91 guesses at best and is rank #4,463 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.78, at or below the proven-optimal 3.80, 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 EHMBUHS. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.