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

NUCHA

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

As an opener, it rules out about 90.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈnjuːkə//ˈn(j)ukə/

Noun

The spinal cord.

Noun

The back of the neck, the nape; of an animal: the back of the head or the portion of the body behind the head.

Alternative forms: nuke

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 NUCHA performs as a guess

Wordle accepts NUCHA 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 78.1% of games, misses completely in 21.9%, and leaves about 232 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,843 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.72 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 NUCHA 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.

4.28 Entropy (bits)
232 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 38% of evaluated openers
1.66 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How NUCHA 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.

3.72 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#7,843 Rank among openers
Opening with NUCHA left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.72 average. It ranks #7,843 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
42
3 guesses
850
4 guesses
1,213
5 guesses
226
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

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ANU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
15%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

NUCHA can come back 78 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

519 answers
410 answers
182 answers
133 answers
103 answers
101 answers
94 answers
93 answers
82 answers
67 answers
58 answers
42 answers
40 answers
33 answers
31 answers
28 answers
25 answers
23 answers
23 answers
23 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

N1U1C3H4A1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing NUCHA

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing NUCHA:

22% chance
Suggested:
SOLER
17% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
8% chance
Suggested:
GOIER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.9%
SOLER 5.99 bits
17.3%
TARSE 5.56 bits
7.7%
GOIER 5.31 bits
5.6%
GOIER 4.64 bits
4.3%
TORSE 5.81 bits
4.3%
SOLDE 4.54 bits
4.0%
CRISE 5.14 bits
3.9%
STOLE 5.34 bits
3.5%
CRATE 4.81 bits
2.8%
REAST 4.88 bits

Research on NUCHA

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

Optimal play

Opening with NUCHA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,199 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 NUCHA can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.72, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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 NOOCHUH. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, NUCHA is a kind of rear.

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).