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

LUCKY

Yes, LUCKY was the Wordle answer on September 9, 2023 (Wordle #812).

As an opener, it rules out about 85.6% of possible answers.

Open Solver with LUCKY Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈlʌki//ˈlʊki//ˈlʌke/

Adjective

Favoured by luck; fortunate; having good success or good fortune.

“a lucky adventurer”

Adjective

Producing, or resulting in, good fortune

“a lucky mistake”

Noun

seven

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: September 9, 2023 (#812).

See the full page for that puzzle: September 9, 2023 (#812).

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

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How LUCKY performs as a guess

LUCKY 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 67.5% of games, misses completely in 32.5%, and leaves about 342 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,355 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.79 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___Y L in the 1st position and Y in the 5th position L__K_ L in the 1st position and K in the 4th position _U__Y U in the 2nd position and Y in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe LUCKY 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.

3.89 Entropy (bits)
342 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
85.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 18% of evaluated openers
2.06 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How LUCKY 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.

3.79 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#11,355 Rank among openers
Opening with LUCKY left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.79 average. It ranks #11,355 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
43
3 guesses
741
4 guesses
1,248
5 guesses
293
6 guesses
25
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
1 vowels
Common:
LU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
68%
Green tile
27%
All gray
32%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I M Y
B A D L Y
L U C K Y

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches LUCKY in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

LUCKY can come back 77 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

772 answers
305 answers
194 answers
190 answers
151 answers
72 answers
59 answers
57 answers
49 answers
48 answers
46 answers
35 answers
33 answers
28 answers
27 answers
23 answers
21 answers
21 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
12 answers
10 answers
10 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

L1U1C3K5Y4
Total: 14 points

Words With Friends

Total: 16 points

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

Try next

TIARE SLATE SARED TRONE TARGE STRAE

Strategy after playing LUCKY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing LUCKY:

33% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
13% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
8% chance
Suggested:
TIARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

32.5% →
TIARE 6.32 bits
12.8% →
SLATE 5.43 bits
8.2% →
TIARE 5.68 bits
8.0% →
SARED 4.92 bits
6.4% →
TRONE 5.44 bits
3.0% →
TARGE 4.85 bits
2.5% →
STRAE 5.01 bits
2.4% →
SALLE 4.05 bits
2.1% →
ROATE 4.60 bits
2.0% →
SAINE 4.49 bits

Research on LUCKY

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

Optimal play

Opening with LUCKY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.79 guesses and ranks #10,374 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.92 guesses at best and is rank #4,579 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.79, at or below the proven-optimal 3.79, 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 LUHKEE.

Rhymes with DUCKY YUCKY MUCKY

Related meanings

Synonyms golden favorable prosperous favourable hot fortunate

Opposites unlucky unfortunate

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
LUCKY sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 59 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A1); among the first words English learners study.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 5, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 28 of 100. Raters found it difficult to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with internal bodily sensation (3.0 of 5).

In a sentence

This time I was lucky.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
No one is that lucky.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).