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

FUZES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 87.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of fuze

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of fuze

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 FUZES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts FUZES 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 74.8% of games, misses completely in 25.2%, and leaves about 293 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,554 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.87 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 FUZES 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.

3.82 Entropy (bits)
293 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 15% of evaluated openers
2.13 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How FUZES 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.

3.87 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#13,554 Rank among openers
Opening with FUZES left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.87 average. It ranks #13,554 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
38
3 guesses
628
4 guesses
1,307
5 guesses
357
6 guesses
22
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)
75%
Green tile
28%
All gray
25%

Feedback distribution

FUZES can come back 59 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

599 answers
416 answers
241 answers
212 answers
158 answers
103 answers
101 answers
55 answers
51 answers
50 answers
50 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
22 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

F4U1Z10E1S1
Total: 17 points

Words With Friends

Total: 18 points

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

Strategy after playing FUZES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing FUZES:

25% chance
Suggested:
CAROL
18% chance
Suggested:
LEARE
10% chance
Suggested:
SLANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.2%
CAROL 5.95 bits
17.5%
LEARE 5.44 bits
10.2%
SLANT 5.19 bits
8.9%
OATER 4.21 bits
6.7%
SLANT 4.80 bits
4.3%
CLARY 4.26 bits
4.3%
COURT 4.99 bits
2.3%
SHUNT 3.94 bits
2.1%
STEER 4.06 bits
2.1%
ROUTE 4.32 bits

Research on FUZES

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

Optimal play

Opening with FUZES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.86 guesses and ranks #13,098 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 FUZES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.87; proven optimal play reaches 3.86. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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 FYOOZIHZ.

Rhymes with OOZES RUSES

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, FUZES is a kind of light.

Synonyms fuse primer

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
FUZES sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

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).