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

LEPER

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈlɛpɚ/

Noun

A person who has leprosy, a person suffering from Hansen's disease.

Noun

Synonym of outcast: A person who is shunned, a pariah.

Verb

To afflict with leprosy.

Verb

Synonym of infect.

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 LEPER performs as a guess

LEPER 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 80.4% of games, misses completely in 19.6%, and leaves about 183 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,249 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 LEPER 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.

4.69 Entropy (bits)
183 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
92.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 65% of evaluated openers
1.26 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How LEPER 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
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#5,249 Rank among openers
Opening with LEPER left 2 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 3.67 average. It ranks #5,249 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
67
3 guesses
886
4 guesses
1,157
5 guesses
226
6 guesses
15
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ELR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
29%
All gray
20%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S I L E D
C L U M P
L E P E R

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches LEPER in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

LEPER can come back 103 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

466 answers
263 answers
238 answers
182 answers
113 answers
97 answers
83 answers
79 answers
53 answers
52 answers
47 answers
45 answers
42 answers
42 answers
36 answers
33 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
26 answers
23 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

L1E1P3E1R1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing LEPER

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing LEPER:

20% chance
Suggested:
SAINT
11% chance
Suggested:
COAST
10% chance
Suggested:
COAST

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.6%
SAINT 6.15 bits
11.1%
COAST 5.52 bits
10.0%
COAST 5.00 bits
7.7%
SAINT 5.53 bits
4.8%
COAST 4.84 bits
4.1%
BLASE 4.58 bits
3.5%
COAST 3.52 bits
3.3%
POSIT 4.92 bits
2.2%
COAST 4.16 bits
2.2%
DEATH 4.35 bits

Research on LEPER

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

Optimal play

Opening with LEPER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,549 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 LEPER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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 LEHPUR.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, LEPER is a kind of unfortunate or outcast.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
LEPER 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 (3.9 of 5).

In a sentence

I feel like a leper.
© tatoeba.org contributor Eccles17 (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I am not a leper; I'm just gay.
© tatoeba.org contributor maaster (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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).