5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess C tier for first-turn info

LOCUS

Yes, LOCUS was the Wordle answer on April 7, 2023 (Wordle #657).

As an opener, it rules out about 92.4% of possible answers.

Open Solver with LOCUS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈləʊkəs//ˈloʊkəs/

Noun

A place or locality, especially a centre of activity or the scene of a crime.

“The cafeteria was the locus of activity.”

Noun

The set of all points whose coordinates satisfy a given equation or condition.

“A circle is the locus of points from which the distance to the center is a given value, the radius.”

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

Used once

Past Wordle answer: April 7, 2023 (#657).

See the full page for that puzzle: April 7, 2023 (#657).

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

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How LOCUS performs as a guess

LOCUS 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 79.8% of games, misses completely in 20.2%, and leaves about 181 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,301 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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.

L___S L in the 1st position and S in the 5th position L__U_ L in the 1st position and U in the 4th position _O__S O in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe LOCUS 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.

4.64 Entropy (bits)
181 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
92.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 61% of evaluated openers
1.31 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How LOCUS 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#3,301 Rank among openers
Opening with LOCUS left 2 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 3.64 average. It ranks #3,301 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
58
3 guesses
938
4 guesses
1,156
5 guesses
183
6 guesses
16
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:
LOSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
21%
All gray
20%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S C O L D
L O C U S

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches LOCUS in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

LOCUS can come back 92 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

479 answers
231 answers
217 answers
162 answers
138 answers
111 answers
103 answers
72 answers
64 answers
56 answers
56 answers
52 answers
41 answers
38 answers
35 answers
35 answers
33 answers
31 answers
29 answers
28 answers
24 answers
22 answers
22 answers
22 answers
15 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

L1O1C3U1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Try next

TIARE RAILE TRINE CRATE TRADE TRODE

Strategy after playing LOCUS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing LOCUS:

20% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
10% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
9% chance
Suggested:
RAILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.2% →
TIARE 6.15 bits
9.7% →
TIARE 5.75 bits
9.1% →
RAILE 5.37 bits
6.8% →
TRINE 5.51 bits
5.8% →
CRATE 5.59 bits
4.7% →
TRADE 5.00 bits
4.3% →
TRODE 4.41 bits
3.0% →
THALE 4.77 bits
2.7% →
STANE 4.37 bits
2.4% →
TRONE 4.33 bits

Research on LOCUS

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

Optimal play

Opening with LOCUS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #4,251 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.81 guesses at best and is rank #1,534 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.69, 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 LOHKUHS.

Rhymes with FOCUS HOCUS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, LOCUS is a kind of scene or site.

Synonyms VENUE

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
LOCUS 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.

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).