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

NUBIA

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A light, knitted headscarf worn by women.

Alternative forms: nuby

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

Etymology

The origin of this word is contested. At root it is probably a geographical rather than an ethnic designation. (See Nubians § Etymology on Wikipedia.Wikipedia ). The related term Noba was used (with some uncertainty even among the writers as to its meaning) both for a people already living in the area and for those who conquered it in the 4th century CE.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use NUBIA in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 91.0% 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 NUBIA performs as a guess

Wordle accepts NUBIA 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 83.0% of games, misses completely in 17.0%, and leaves about 216 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,890 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.74 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 NUBIA 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)
216 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How NUBIA 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.

3.74 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#8,890 Rank among openers
Opening with NUBIA left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.74 average. It ranks #8,890 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
50
3 guesses
828
4 guesses
1,180
5 guesses
277
6 guesses
17

Composition

5/5 unique
3 vowels
Common:
AINU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
20%
All gray
17%

Feedback distribution

NUBIA can come back 88 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

457 answers
406 answers
247 answers
124 answers
122 answers
108 answers
97 answers
91 answers
55 answers
52 answers
48 answers
43 answers
42 answers
35 answers
34 answers
34 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

N1U1B3I1A1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing NUBIA

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing NUBIA:

19% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
17% chance
Suggested:
SOREL
10% chance
Suggested:
STILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.2% →
TARSE 5.67 bits
17.0% →
SOREL 5.89 bits
10.4% →
STILE 5.26 bits
5.2% →
CORSE 5.41 bits
5.1% →
SARGE 4.52 bits
4.5% →
TORSE 4.99 bits
4.1% →
TONEY 4.33 bits
3.8% →
MORSE 4.45 bits
2.3% →
BLADE 4.69 bits
2.2% →
TORSE 4.76 bits

Research on NUBIA

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

Optimal play

Opening with NUBIA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.76 guesses and ranks #8,934 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.89 guesses at best and is rank #3,844 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.74, at or below the proven-optimal 3.76, 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
NUBIA 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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).