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

NUMPS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 86.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A fool; a blockhead.

Alternative forms: nump

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 NUMPS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts NUMPS 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 68.4% of games, misses completely in 31.6%, and leaves about 322 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,422 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.71 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 NUMPS 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.

3.98 Entropy (bits)
322 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
86.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 22% of evaluated openers
1.97 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How NUMPS 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.

3.71 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#7,422 Rank among openers
Opening with NUMPS 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 3.71 average. It ranks #7,422 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
38
3 guesses
864
4 guesses
1,206
5 guesses
232
6 guesses
13
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
1 vowels
Common:
NSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
68%
Green tile
15%
All gray
32%

Feedback distribution

NUMPS can come back 72 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

750 answers
267 answers
262 answers
109 answers
106 answers
90 answers
84 answers
72 answers
72 answers
50 answers
44 answers
34 answers
33 answers
28 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
22 answers
21 answers
17 answers
16 answers
13 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

N1U1M3P3S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing NUMPS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing NUMPS:

32% chance
Suggested:
TALER
11% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
11% chance
Suggested:
STALE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

31.6%
TALER 6.16 bits
11.2%
ARIEL 5.55 bits
11.0%
STALE 5.73 bits
4.6%
MAIRE 5.55 bits
4.5%
ARIEL 5.39 bits
3.8%
CLOTE 5.38 bits
3.5%
LATER 4.60 bits
3.0%
STIRE 4.95 bits
3.0%
TIARE 4.87 bits
2.1%
TRIDE 4.28 bits

Research on NUMPS

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

Optimal play

Opening with NUMPS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,107 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.85 guesses at best and is rank #2,767 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.71, 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

One syllable Say it NUHMPS. Estimated pronunciation

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

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.