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

KUDZU

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈkʊd.zuː//ˈkʌd.zuː/

Noun

An Asian vine (several species in the genus Pueraria, but mostly Pueraria montana var. lobata, syn. Pueraria lobata in the US), grown as a root starch, and which is a notorious invasive weed in the United States.

Noun

A starch extracted from the root that is used in traditional East Asian medicine and cuisine.

Alternative forms: kuzu

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

Etymology

From Japanese 葛(くず) (kuzu). The spelling kudzu (instead of kuzu) is due to the historical transliteration methods of Japanese into English (compare adzuki).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

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

Use KUDZU in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 62.6% of possible answers.

Open Solver with KUDZU 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

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

Past Wordle answer

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

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

How KUDZU performs as a guess

Wordle accepts KUDZU 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 41.0% of games, misses completely in 59.0%, and leaves about 892 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #14,816 of 14,855 openers, averaging 4.07 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.

K___U K in the 1st position and U in the 5th position K__Z_ K in the 1st position and Z in the 4th position _U__U U in the 2nd position and U in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe KUDZU 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.

2.28 Entropy (bits)
892 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
62.6% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How KUDZU 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.

4.07 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#14,816 Rank among openers
Opening with KUDZU left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 4.07 average. It ranks #14,816 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
17
3 guesses
420
4 guesses
1,329
5 guesses
548
6 guesses
37

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
U

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
41%
Green tile
13%
All gray
59%

Feedback distribution

KUDZU can come back 30 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

1407 answers
236 answers
208 answers
144 answers
141 answers
62 answers
38 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
15 answers
13 answers
11 answers
6 answers
5 answers
3 answers
3 answers
2 answers
2 answers
2 answers
1 answer
1 answer
1 answer
1 answer
1 answer
1 answer
1 answer
1 answer
1 answer

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

K5U1D2Z10U1
Total: 19 points

Words With Friends

Total: 21 points

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

Try next

ROATE ARIEL TORSE CARSE SLYER RAILE

Strategy after playing KUDZU

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing KUDZU:

59% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
10% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
9% chance
Suggested:
TORSE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

59.0% →
ROATE 6.07 bits
9.9% →
ARIEL 5.64 bits
8.7% →
TORSE 5.40 bits
6.0% →
CARSE 5.31 bits
5.9% →
SLYER 4.46 bits
2.6% →
RAILE 4.88 bits
1.6% →
DROLE 4.03 bits
0.8% →
SLANT 3.65 bits
0.8% →
LEANY 3.88 bits
0.8% →
ARIEL 3.83 bits

Research on KUDZU

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

Optimal play

Opening with KUDZU, a proven-optimal strategy averages 4.04 guesses and ranks #14,791 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 KUDZU can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 4.07; proven optimal play reaches 4.04. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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
KUDZU 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.

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).