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

JOUKS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 83.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of jouk

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 JOUKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts JOUKS 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 64.1% of games, misses completely in 35.9%, and leaves about 404 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,809 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.89 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 JOUKS 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.

3.50 Entropy (bits)
404 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
83.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 7% of evaluated openers
2.45 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How JOUKS 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.

3.89 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#13,809 Rank among openers
Opening with JOUKS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.89 average. It ranks #13,809 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
20
3 guesses
634
4 guesses
1,319
5 guesses
353
6 guesses
27
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:
OSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
64%
Green tile
22%
All gray
36%

Feedback distribution

JOUKS can come back 49 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

852 answers
303 answers
239 answers
181 answers
163 answers
74 answers
66 answers
66 answers
52 answers
42 answers
38 answers
36 answers
35 answers
34 answers
19 answers
16 answers
15 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

J8O1U1K5S1
Total: 16 points

Words With Friends

Total: 19 points

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

Strategy after playing JOUKS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing JOUKS:

36% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
13% chance
Suggested:
STALE
10% chance
Suggested:
TRINE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

35.9%
RAILE 6.16 bits
12.8%
STALE 5.72 bits
10.1%
TRINE 5.35 bits
7.6%
TALER 4.58 bits
6.9%
RAILE 4.83 bits
3.1%
TRONE 4.25 bits
2.8%
CARLE 5.15 bits
2.8%
PALET 4.77 bits
2.2%
SHIER 4.12 bits
1.8%
TRIPE 4.05 bits

Research on JOUKS

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

Optimal play

Opening with JOUKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.90 guesses and ranks #13,860 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.05 guesses at best and is rank #6,801 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.89, at or below the proven-optimal 3.90, 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 JOWKS. Estimated pronunciation

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

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.