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

NANDU

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

As an opener, it rules out about 87.5% of possible answers.

Open Solver with NANDU Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

rhea (large, flightless birds)

Alternative forms: nandou, nandow

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

No

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

Past Wordle answer

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

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

How NANDU performs as a guess

Wordle accepts NANDU 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 73.3% of games, misses completely in 26.7%, and leaves about 297 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,980 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.81 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.

N__D_ N in the 1st position and D in the 4th position _A__U A in the 2nd position and U in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe NANDU 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.

3.83 Entropy (bits)
297 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.5% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 16% of evaluated openers
2.12 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How NANDU 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.

3.81 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#11,980 Rank among openers
Opening with NANDU 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 3.81 average. It ranks #11,980 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
34
3 guesses
701
4 guesses
1,317
5 guesses
278
6 guesses
22
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ANU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
73%
Green tile
21%
All gray
27%

Feedback distribution

NANDU can come back 62 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

635 answers
377 answers
249 answers
190 answers
148 answers
120 answers
89 answers
58 answers
55 answers
54 answers
37 answers
35 answers
29 answers
28 answers
23 answers
23 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
11 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

N1A1N1D2U1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

TORSE SLATE SOREL STORE DRIED GRISE

Strategy after playing NANDU

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing NANDU:

27% chance
Suggested:
TORSE
16% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
10% chance
Suggested:
SOREL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

26.7% →
TORSE 6.14 bits
15.9% →
SLATE 5.64 bits
10.5% →
SOREL 5.36 bits
8.0% →
TORSE 4.85 bits
6.2% →
STORE 5.12 bits
5.1% →
DRIED 5.33 bits
3.7% →
GRISE 4.64 bits
2.4% →
DROLE 4.58 bits
2.3% →
CORSE 4.41 bits
2.3% →
STILE 4.26 bits

Research on NANDU

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

Optimal play

Opening with NANDU, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.85 guesses and ranks #12,533 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 NANDU can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.81, at or below the proven-optimal 3.85, 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 NANDOO. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, NANDU is a kind of bird.

Synonyms rhea

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
NANDU sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).