LIMBO
Yes, LIMBO was the Wordle answer on October 20, 2025 (Wordle #1584).
As an opener, it rules out about 89.7% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈlɪmbəʊ//ˈlɪmboʊ//ˈlɪmboː/
- Noun
-
A speculative place or state, thought possibly to be on the edge of the bottomless pit of Hell, where the souls of innocent deceased people might exist temporarily until they can enter heaven, specifically those of the saints who died before the advent of Jesus Christ (who occupy the limbo patrum or limbo of the patriarchs or fathers) and those of unbaptized infants (who occupy the limbo infantum or limbo of the infants); (countable) the possible place where each category of souls might exist…
- Noun
-
Chiefly preceded by in: any in-between place, or condition or state, of neglect or oblivion which results in deadlock, delay, or some other unresolved status.
“My passport application has been stuck in bureaucratic limbo for two weeks.”
- Verb
-
To dance the limbo (etymology 2, noun etymology 2, noun sense 1).
- Verb
-
Often followed by under: to pass under something, especially while bending backwards.
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: October 20, 2025 (#1584).
See the full page for that puzzle: October 20, 2025 (#1584).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How LIMBO performs as a guess
LIMBO 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 75.5% of games, misses completely in 24.5%, and leaves about 245 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,769 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe LIMBO 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How LIMBO 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches LIMBO in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
LIMBO can come back 84 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for LIMBO; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing LIMBO
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to LIMBO.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing LIMBO:
Research on LIMBO
Game-tree analysis and word research for LIMBO, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with LIMBO, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.74 guesses and ranks #7,263 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.83 guesses at best and is rank #2,320 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, at or below the proven-optimal 3.74, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, LIMBO is a kind of obscurity or vision.
Synonyms oblivion
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- LIMBO sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 2 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.2 of 5).
In a sentence
The party had a limbo contest.
Tom is stuck in legal limbo.
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).