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

HURLS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.7% of possible answers.

Open Solver with HURLS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of hurl

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 HURLS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HURLS 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 84.5% of games, misses completely in 15.5%, and leaves about 172 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,299 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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.

H___S H in the 1st position and S in the 5th position H__L_ H in the 1st position and L in the 4th position _U__S U in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe HURLS 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.

4.70 Entropy (bits)
172 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 65% of evaluated openers
1.24 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HURLS 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#3,299 Rank among openers
Opening with HURLS left 2 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 3.64 average. It ranks #3,299 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
49
3 guesses
975
4 guesses
1,111
5 guesses
203
6 guesses
14
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
1 vowels
Common:
LRSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
23%
All gray
16%

Feedback distribution

HURLS can come back 90 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

367 answers
356 answers
238 answers
195 answers
98 answers
78 answers
68 answers
63 answers
61 answers
61 answers
58 answers
55 answers
49 answers
49 answers
42 answers
33 answers
31 answers
29 answers
23 answers
22 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4U1R1L1S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

ATONE DAINE CANOE NAICE STOAE BLAER

Strategy after playing HURLS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HURLS:

15% chance
Suggested:
ATONE
15% chance
Suggested:
DAINE
10% chance
Suggested:
CANOE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.5% →
ATONE 5.86 bits
15.0% →
DAINE 5.53 bits
10.0% →
CANOE 5.33 bits
8.2% →
ATONE 5.62 bits
4.1% →
NAICE 5.31 bits
3.3% →
STOAE 4.96 bits
2.9% →
DAINE 4.76 bits
2.7% →
BLAER 4.48 bits
2.6% →
ATONE 4.46 bits
2.6% →
DAINE 4.07 bits

Research on HURLS

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

Optimal play

Opening with HURLS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,269 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.81 guesses at best and is rank #1,704 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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 HURLZ. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, HURLS is a kind of throw or loft.

Synonyms THROW cast thrust

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
HURLS 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.9 of 5).

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).