Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess C tier for first-turn info

ENSUE

Yes, ENSUE was the Wordle answer on August 5, 2024 (Wordle #1143).

As an opener, it rules out about 91.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ɪnˈsjuː//ɪnˈʃuː//ɛnˈsjuː/

Verb

To occur afterwards, as a result or effect.

“Give three freshmen six bottles of wine, and hilarity will ensue.”

Verb

To follow (a leader, inclination etc.).

Alternative forms: insue

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: August 5, 2024 (#1143).

See the full page for that puzzle: August 5, 2024 (#1143).

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

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How ENSUE performs as a guess

ENSUE 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 79.4% of games, misses completely in 20.6%, and leaves about 197 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,046 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.76 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 ENSUE 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.

4.53 Entropy (bits)
197 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
91.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 54% of evaluated openers
1.41 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ENSUE 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.

3.76 Avg guesses
99.79% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#10,046 Rank among openers
Opening with ENSUE left 5 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 3.76 average. It ranks #10,046 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
59
3 guesses
753
4 guesses
1,245
5 guesses
265
6 guesses
26
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
3 vowels
Common:
ENSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
29%
All gray
21%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I N G
D E N S E
E N S U E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches ENSUE in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

ENSUE can come back 88 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

490 answers
288 answers
199 answers
187 answers
144 answers
139 answers
81 answers
71 answers
56 answers
54 answers
42 answers
40 answers
38 answers
35 answers
29 answers
28 answers
27 answers
25 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

E1N1S1U1E1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing ENSUE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ENSUE:

21% chance
Suggested:
CAROL
12% chance
Suggested:
TALER
8% chance
Suggested:
SHALT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.6%
CAROL 5.99 bits
12.1%
TALER 5.20 bits
8.4%
SHALT 5.36 bits
7.9%
ROANY 4.94 bits
6.1%
TIARE 4.39 bits
5.9%
CURLY 4.75 bits
3.4%
ALIEN 4.42 bits
3.0%
SLART 4.30 bits
2.4%
SHART 4.29 bits
2.3%
COUNT 3.65 bits

Research on ENSUE

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

Optimal play

Opening with ENSUE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,434 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 ENSUE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.76, at or below the proven-optimal 3.77, 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 second syllable Say it IHNSOO.

Rhymes with DEBUT THREW SCREW QUEUE RENEW

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, ENSUE is a kind of prove.

Synonyms result

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
ENSUE 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.

In a sentence

Much hilarity will then ensue.
© tatoeba.org contributor mailohilohi (CC BY 2.0 FR)
The president's argument is that chaos would ensue if he were forced from office.
© tatoeba.org contributor Cangarejo (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).