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

INCUS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 90.7% of possible answers.

Open Solver with INCUS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɪŋ.kəs/

Noun

A small anvil-shaped bone in the middle ear.

Noun

An accessory cloud in the shape of an anvil which forms by spreading at the top of a cumulonimbus.

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 INCUS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts INCUS 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 76.8% of games, misses completely in 23.2%, and leaves about 220 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,858 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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.

I___S I in the 1st position and S in the 5th position I__U_ I in the 1st position and U in the 4th position _N__S N in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe INCUS 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.

4.34 Entropy (bits)
220 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 41% of evaluated openers
1.61 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How INCUS 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#5,858 Rank among openers
Opening with INCUS left 4 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 3.68 average. It ranks #5,858 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
51
3 guesses
871
4 guesses
1,219
5 guesses
189
6 guesses
20
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:
INSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
77%
Green tile
11%
All gray
23%

Feedback distribution

INCUS can come back 81 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

550 answers
243 answers
242 answers
157 answers
138 answers
135 answers
102 answers
91 answers
65 answers
58 answers
46 answers
40 answers
38 answers
35 answers
35 answers
34 answers
28 answers
26 answers
24 answers
23 answers
18 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

I1N1C3U1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Try next

ALTER STARE TRADE OATER CRATE ROULE

Strategy after playing INCUS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing INCUS:

23% chance
Suggested:
ALTER
10% chance
Suggested:
STARE
10% chance
Suggested:
TRADE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

23.2% →
ALTER 6.08 bits
10.2% →
STARE 5.79 bits
10.2% →
TRADE 5.55 bits
6.6% →
OATER 5.27 bits
5.8% →
CRATE 5.64 bits
5.7% →
ROULE 4.90 bits
4.3% →
TARGE 4.68 bits
3.8% →
STILE 4.65 bits
2.7% →
SLATE 4.30 bits
2.4% →
CHARE 4.34 bits

Research on INCUS

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

Optimal play

Opening with INCUS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #7,950 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.86 guesses at best and is rank #3,121 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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 IHNKUHS. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, INCUS is a kind of bone.

Synonyms ANVIL

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
INCUS sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

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).