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

FANUM

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

The site of an Ancient Roman temple or shrine.

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

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin fānum (“shrine”). Doublet of fane.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use FANUM in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 89.3% 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 FANUM performs as a guess

Wordle accepts FANUM 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 75.0% of games, misses completely in 25.0%, and leaves about 255 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,881 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.72 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 FANUM 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.

4.21 Entropy (bits)
255 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.3% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How FANUM 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.

3.72 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#7,881 Rank among openers
Opening with FANUM left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.72 average. It ranks #7,881 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
49
3 guesses
810
4 guesses
1,256
5 guesses
230
6 guesses
8

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ANU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
75%
Green tile
26%
All gray
25%

Feedback distribution

FANUM can come back 80 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

596 answers
349 answers
185 answers
173 answers
169 answers
95 answers
89 answers
58 answers
54 answers
51 answers
45 answers
38 answers
38 answers
34 answers
33 answers
29 answers
29 answers
23 answers
20 answers
18 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4A1N1U1M3
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing FANUM

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FANUM:

25% chance
Suggested:
SOLER
15% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
8% chance
Suggested:
SOLER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.0% →
SOLER 5.97 bits
14.6% →
SLATE 5.64 bits
7.8% →
SOLER 5.10 bits
7.3% →
SLIER 5.10 bits
7.1% →
SLYER 4.75 bits
4.0% →
GRISE 4.69 bits
3.7% →
TOILE 5.34 bits
2.4% →
HOISE 4.31 bits
2.3% →
SOLER 4.71 bits
2.1% →
STONE 3.94 bits

Research on FANUM

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

Optimal play

Opening with FANUM, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.76 guesses and ranks #8,548 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 FANUM can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.72, at or below the proven-optimal 3.76, 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).