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

GULLS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 84.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ɡʌlz/

Noun

plural of gull

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of gull

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 GULLS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts GULLS 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 65.6% of games, misses completely in 34.4%, and leaves about 376 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,622 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.77 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 GULLS 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.

3.80 Entropy (bits)
376 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
84.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 15% of evaluated openers
2.15 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GULLS 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.

3.77 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#10,622 Rank among openers
Opening with GULLS left 4 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.77 average. It ranks #10,622 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
39
3 guesses
793
4 guesses
1,193
5 guesses
308
6 guesses
17
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
1 vowels
Common:
LSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
66%
Green tile
23%
All gray
34%

Feedback distribution

GULLS can come back 73 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

816 answers
352 answers
229 answers
107 answers
102 answers
87 answers
60 answers
54 answers
54 answers
51 answers
48 answers
36 answers
28 answers
22 answers
21 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2U1L1L1S1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing GULLS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GULLS:

34% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
15% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
10% chance
Suggested:
TIARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

34.4%
ROATE 6.11 bits
14.8%
TIARE 5.76 bits
9.6%
TIARE 5.34 bits
4.5%
TRONE 5.47 bits
4.3%
RAINE 5.40 bits
3.7%
CRONE 4.23 bits
2.5%
CARET 4.51 bits
2.3%
WAITE 4.74 bits
2.3%
IRONE 4.94 bits
2.1%
SLATE 4.51 bits

Research on GULLS

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

Optimal play

Opening with GULLS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.84 guesses and ranks #12,153 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 GULLS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.77, at or below the proven-optimal 3.84, 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

One syllable Say it GUHLZ.

Rhymes with HULLS MULLS LULLS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, GULLS is a kind of victim or deceive.

Synonyms mark fool cod mug sucker SLANG

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
GULLS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.6 of 5).

In a sentence

The sea gulls are flying low.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Some people like sea gulls, others don't.
© tatoeba.org contributor CM (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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).