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

NIDUS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 90.6% of possible answers.

Open Solver with NIDUS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

An aggregate of neurons.

Noun

A nest for insects or small animals.

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 NIDUS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts NIDUS 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 75.5% of games, misses completely in 24.5%, and leaves about 224 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,622 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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___S N in the 1st position and S in the 5th position N__U_ N in the 1st position and U in the 4th position _I__S I in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe NIDUS 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.

4.40 Entropy (bits)
224 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 45% of evaluated openers
1.55 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How NIDUS 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#5,622 Rank among openers
Opening with NIDUS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.68 average. It ranks #5,622 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
46
3 guesses
888
4 guesses
1,214
5 guesses
184
6 guesses
21
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:
INSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
17%
All gray
24%

Feedback distribution

NIDUS can come back 79 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

582 answers
269 answers
171 answers
145 answers
144 answers
98 answers
90 answers
84 answers
69 answers
68 answers
48 answers
47 answers
47 answers
36 answers
33 answers
32 answers
28 answers
25 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

N1I1D2U1S1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Try next

CARLE STALE CARET TRACE ROULE DEARY

Strategy after playing NIDUS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing NIDUS:

25% chance
Suggested:
CARLE
11% chance
Suggested:
STALE
7% chance
Suggested:
CARET

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

24.5% →
CARLE 6.26 bits
11.3% →
STALE 5.77 bits
7.2% →
CARET 5.38 bits
6.1% →
TRACE 5.60 bits
6.1% →
ROULE 4.87 bits
4.1% →
DEARY 5.32 bits
3.8% →
PALET 4.71 bits
3.5% →
TARGE 4.69 bits
2.9% →
SLART 4.36 bits
2.9% →
PEART 4.58 bits

Research on NIDUS

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

Optimal play

Opening with NIDUS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #5,921 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 NIDUS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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 NIHDUHS. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, NIDUS is a kind of point or nest.

Synonyms FOCUS

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
NIDUS sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

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).