Possible answer Not used yet C tier for first-turn info

GUSTO

GUSTO is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.

As an opener, it rules out about 90.9% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɡʌstəʊ//ˈɡʌstoʊ/

Noun

Enthusiasm; enjoyment, vigor.

“He sang with more gusto than talent.”

Noun

The style in which a work is done, its artistic style, and occasionally, the prevailing style in matters of taste.

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

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 GUSTO performs as a guess

GUSTO is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 76.5% of games, misses completely in 23.5%, and leaves about 215 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,088 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.67 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 GUSTO 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.

4.53 Entropy (bits)
215 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
90.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 54% of evaluated openers
1.42 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GUSTO 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.

3.67 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#5,088 Rank among openers
Opening with GUSTO solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.67 average. It ranks #5,088 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
57
3 guesses
895
4 guesses
1,180
5 guesses
204
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

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
OSTU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
21%
All gray
24%

Example solver route

R O A T E
B U N C H
G U S T O

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches GUSTO in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

GUSTO can come back 92 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

558 answers
273 answers
199 answers
185 answers
92 answers
77 answers
74 answers
74 answers
69 answers
68 answers
57 answers
43 answers
42 answers
41 answers
34 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2U1S1T1O1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing GUSTO

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GUSTO:

24% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
11% chance
Suggested:
CARLE
8% chance
Suggested:
PARLE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

23.5%
RAILE 6.18 bits
11.5%
CARLE 5.35 bits
8.4%
PARLE 5.52 bits
7.8%
CARET 5.51 bits
3.9%
LEAST 4.74 bits
3.2%
CLARY 4.34 bits
3.1%
PLORE 4.47 bits
3.1%
RAINE 5.22 bits
2.9%
TALER 4.51 bits
2.9%
CLINE 5.01 bits

Research on GUSTO

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

Optimal play

Opening with GUSTO, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,296 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 GUSTO can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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 GUHSTOH.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, GUSTO is a kind of enthusiasm.

Synonyms relish zest

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
GUSTO 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.

In a sentence

Everyone did the work with gusto.
© tatoeba.org contributor sundown (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Everyone took part in the work with gusto.
© tatoeba.org contributor sundown (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).