LUNAR
Yes, LUNAR was the Wordle answer on December 21, 2022 (Wordle #550).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈl(j)uːnə//ˈlunɚ/
- Adjective
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Of, pertaining to, or resembling the Moon (that is, Luna, the Earth's moon).
“lunar observations a lunar eclipse”
- Adjective
-
Shaped like a crescent moon; lunate.
- Noun
-
The middle bone of the proximal series of the carpus in the wrist, which is shaped like a half-moon.
- Noun
-
An observation of a lunar distance (“the angle between the Moon and another celestial body”), especially for establishing the longitude of a ship at sea.
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English lunar (“shaped like the crescent moon”), from Latin lūnāris (“of or pertaining to the moon, lunar”) (possibly through Middle French lunaire (modern French lunaire (“lunar”)), from lūna (“the Moon; crescent shape”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *lewk- (“bright; to shine”)) + -is (suffix forming adjectives).
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it LOONUR.
Rhymes with TUNER
In a sentence
What is the new Lunar Year?
There is a lunar eclipse.
Use LUNAR in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 95.3% 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
Used oncePast Wordle answer: December 21, 2022 (#550).
See the full page for that puzzle: December 21, 2022 (#550).
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 →LUNAR in Connections
1 recorded appearance in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #882
Reveal this appearance's category
LUNAR appeared in STARTING WITH BIRD HOMOPHONES (purple group).
How LUNAR performs as a guess
LUNAR 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 88.7% of games, misses completely in 11.3%, and leaves about 112 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,867 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.63 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 LUNAR 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 LUNAR 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 LUNAR in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
LUNAR can come back 105 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 LUNAR; 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 LUNAR
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to LUNAR.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing LUNAR:
Research on LUNAR
Game-tree analysis and word research for LUNAR, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with LUNAR, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,690 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 LUNAR can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.63, 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
- LUNAR sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 6 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 (3.8 of 5).
Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).