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

NEXUS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 90.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈnɛksəs//ˈnɛksuːs//ˈnɛksus/

Noun

A form or state of connection.

Noun

A connected group; a network, a web.

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 NEXUS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts NEXUS 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 79.7% of games, misses completely in 20.3%, and leaves about 231 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,999 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.84 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 NEXUS 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.

4.05 Entropy (bits)
231 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 25% of evaluated openers
1.90 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How NEXUS 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.

3.84 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#12,999 Rank among openers
Opening with NEXUS left 4 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 3.84 average. It ranks #12,999 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
41
3 guesses
657
4 guesses
1,312
5 guesses
310
6 guesses
30
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
2 vowels
Common:
ENSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
16%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

NEXUS can come back 61 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

482 answers
381 answers
205 answers
182 answers
151 answers
148 answers
138 answers
112 answers
65 answers
61 answers
55 answers
48 answers
34 answers
29 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
19 answers
18 answers
15 answers
14 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

N1E1X8U1S1
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 14 points

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

Strategy after playing NEXUS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing NEXUS:

20% chance
Suggested:
CAROL
16% chance
Suggested:
ORATE
9% chance
Suggested:
SLART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.3%
CAROL 5.99 bits
16.0%
ORATE 5.18 bits
8.6%
SLART 5.21 bits
7.7%
LAIRY 4.99 bits
6.4%
SLART 4.98 bits
6.2%
CLARY 4.87 bits
5.8%
CURLY 4.76 bits
4.7%
AINEE 4.46 bits
2.7%
RUOTE 4.23 bits
2.6%
COUNT 3.76 bits

Research on NEXUS

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

Optimal play

Opening with NEXUS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.85 guesses and ranks #12,506 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.01 guesses at best and is rank #6,292 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.84, 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 NEHKSUHS.

Rhymes with TEXAS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, NEXUS is a kind of linkage or series.

Synonyms link

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
NEXUS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 4 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 (2.5 of 5).

In a sentence

Up ahead is the nexus between our two universes.
© tatoeba.org contributor shekitten (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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).