Accepted guess Not a possible answer F tier for first-turn info

MBUBE

MBUBE is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A style of a cappella choral music originating among the Zulus of South Africa.

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

From Zulu imbube (“lion”) (uyimbube (“you are a lion”)).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use MBUBE in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 84.2% of possible answers.

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

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

Past Wordle answer

No completed appearance

No 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.

How MBUBE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MBUBE as a guess, but the solver does not list it as a possible answer.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 69.0% of games, misses completely in 31.0%, and leaves about 376 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,731 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.88 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe MBUBE 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.

3.57 Entropy (bits)
376 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
84.2% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MBUBE 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.

3.88 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#13,731 Rank among openers
Opening with MBUBE left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.88 average. It ranks #13,731 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
35
3 guesses
623
4 guesses
1,306
5 guesses
361
6 guesses
26

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
69%
Green tile
29%
All gray
31%

Feedback distribution

MBUBE can come back 58 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

740 answers
471 answers
268 answers
137 answers
98 answers
83 answers
73 answers
52 answers
52 answers
47 answers
39 answers
31 answers
28 answers
26 answers
26 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
15 answers
11 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers
6 answers
5 answers
4 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3B3U1B3E1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 15 points

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

Strategy after playing MBUBE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MBUBE:

31% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL
20% chance
Suggested:
ALTER
11% chance
Suggested:
ROAST

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

31.0% →
TRAIL 5.97 bits
19.8% →
ALTER 5.25 bits
11.2% →
ROAST 5.10 bits
5.7% →
SLART 4.78 bits
4.1% →
SLANT 4.78 bits
3.5% →
SONAR 5.00 bits
3.1% →
SOAPY 4.74 bits
2.2% →
BLAER 4.42 bits
2.2% →
RAINY 4.41 bits
2.0% →
GUISE 3.72 bits

Research on MBUBE

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

Optimal play

Opening with MBUBE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.90 guesses and ranks #13,783 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.08 guesses at best and is rank #6,983 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.88, at or below the proven-optimal 3.90, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT).