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

GLUON

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

As an opener, it rules out about 90.6% of possible answers.

Open Solver with GLUON Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɡluː.ɒn//ˈɡlu.ɑn/

Noun

A massless gauge boson that binds quarks together to form baryons, mesons and other hadrons and is associated with the strong nuclear force.

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 GLUON performs as a guess

Wordle accepts GLUON 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 74.7% of games, misses completely in 25.3%, and leaves about 224 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,510 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.63 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

G___N G in the 1st position and N in the 5th position G__O_ G in the 1st position and O in the 4th position _L__N L in the 2nd position and N in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in GLUON.

First-turn measures

All four describe GLUON 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.

4.62 Entropy (bits)
224 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 60% of evaluated openers
1.33 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GLUON 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.

3.63 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#2,510 Rank among openers
Opening with GLUON left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.63 average. It ranks #2,510 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
55
3 guesses
981
4 guesses
1,115
5 guesses
187
6 guesses
15
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:
LNOU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
75%
Green tile
27%
All gray
25%

Feedback distribution

GLUON can come back 101 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

601 answers
227 answers
223 answers
144 answers
111 answers
83 answers
69 answers
59 answers
54 answers
52 answers
43 answers
42 answers
39 answers
38 answers
33 answers
31 answers
28 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2L1U1O1N1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Try next

TARSE SALLE TIARE SIRED SPACE LOYAL

Strategy after playing GLUON

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GLUON:

25% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
10% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
9% chance
Suggested:
SALLE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.3% →
TARSE 6.42 bits
9.6% →
TARSE 5.41 bits
9.4% →
SALLE 5.57 bits
6.1% →
TIARE 5.27 bits
4.7% →
SIRED 4.92 bits
3.5% →
SPACE 4.99 bits
2.9% →
LOYAL 4.37 bits
2.5% →
PATER 4.56 bits
2.3% →
CRISE 4.76 bits
2.2% →
TARSE 4.93 bits

Research on GLUON

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

Optimal play

Opening with GLUON, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,970 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 GLUON can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.63, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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 GLOOUHN. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, GLUON is a kind of particle.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
GLUON 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).