5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess F tier for first-turn info

GULLY

Yes, GULLY was the Wordle answer on September 3, 2022 (Wordle #441).

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɡʌli/

Noun

A trench, ravine or narrow channel which was worn by water flow, especially on a hillside.

Noun

A small valley.

Verb

To wear away into a gully or gullies.

Verb

To flow noisily.

Alternative forms: gulley

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

Etymology

Origin uncertain. Possibly from a variant of Middle English golet (“esophagus, gullet”), from Old French goulet, from Latin gula (“throat”). Shift in meaning in Middle English to "water channel, ravine" may have been influenced by Middle English gylle, gille, galle (“deep narrow valley, ravine”); see gill. Compare Dutch geul.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it GUHLEE.

Rhymes with SULLY CULLY

In a sentence

It's near what looks like a little gully.
© tatoeba.org contributor shekitten (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I fell over a ledge of rock into a gully below.
© tatoeba.org contributor shekitten (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use GULLY in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 81.0% of possible answers.

Open Solver with GULLY Open Word Finder

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: September 3, 2022 (#441).

See the full page for that puzzle: September 3, 2022 (#441).

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

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GULLY in Connections

1 recorded appearance in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.

How GULLY performs as a guess

GULLY is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 60.0% of games, misses completely in 40.0%, and leaves about 454 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,805 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.84 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___Y G in the 1st position and Y in the 5th position G__L_ G in the 1st position and L in the 4th position _U__Y U in the 2nd position and Y in the 5th position GU_LY G in the 1st position, U in the 2nd position, L in the 4th position, and Y in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe GULLY 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.

3.63 Entropy (bits)
454 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
81.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GULLY 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.

3.84 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.74 Spread of game lengths
#12,805 Rank among openers
Opening with GULLY left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.74 means those games clustered within about 0.74 of a guess of the 3.84 average. It ranks #12,805 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
42
3 guesses
703
4 guesses
1,233
5 guesses
345
6 guesses
29

Composition

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
LU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
60%
Green tile
32%
All gray
40%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I M Y
B A D L Y
F U L L Y
G U L L Y

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches GULLY in 5 guesses. See the trap-family guide for similar endgames.

Feedback distribution

GULLY can come back 77 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

953 answers
266 answers
207 answers
169 answers
97 answers
77 answers
53 answers
52 answers
48 answers
46 answers
40 answers
28 answers
24 answers
23 answers
21 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2U1L1L1Y4
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Try next

TIARE TARSE TRONE RAINE CARTE RAISE

Strategy after playing GULLY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GULLY:

40% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
11% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
9% chance
Suggested:
TARSE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

40.0% →
TIARE 6.27 bits
11.2% →
TIARE 5.27 bits
8.7% →
TARSE 5.03 bits
7.1% →
TRONE 5.47 bits
4.1% →
RAINE 5.42 bits
3.2% →
CARTE 4.73 bits
2.2% →
RAISE 4.71 bits
2.2% →
IRONE 4.85 bits
2.0% →
PAISE 4.66 bits
1.9% →
CRUSE 3.81 bits

Research on GULLY

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

Optimal play

Opening with GULLY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.86 guesses and ranks #13,043 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 GULLY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.84, at or below the proven-optimal 3.86, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
GULLY 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 (3.7 of 5).

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).