LUMEN
LUMEN is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈluːmən//ˈlumən/
- Noun
-
In the International System of Units, the derived unit of luminous flux; the light that is emitted in a solid angle of one steradian from a source of one candela. Symbol: lm.
- Noun
-
The cavity or channel within a tube or tubular organ.
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin lūmen (“light, an opening”). Use as a unit was first adopted by French physicist André Blondel in 1894.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it LOOMUHN.
Related meanings
Synonyms lm
Use LUMEN in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 93.4% of possible answers.
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
No completed appearanceNo 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.
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See what the public sample says →How LUMEN performs as a guess
LUMEN is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 83.5% of games, misses completely in 16.5%, and leaves about 158 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,159 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe LUMEN 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 LUMEN 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 LUMEN in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
LUMEN can come back 96 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 LUMEN; 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 LUMEN
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to LUMEN.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing LUMEN:
Research on LUMEN
Game-tree analysis and word research for LUMEN, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with LUMEN, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #3,104 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 LUMEN can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- LUMEN sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once 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).