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

NUQUE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 84.1% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /njuːk/

Noun

The nape of the neck.

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 NUQUE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts NUQUE 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 69.8% of games, misses completely in 30.2%, and leaves about 377 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #14,616 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.98 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 NUQUE 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.

3.36 Entropy (bits)
377 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
84.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 5% of evaluated openers
2.59 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How NUQUE 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.

3.98 Avg guesses
99.62% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#14,616 Rank among openers
Opening with NUQUE left 9 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.98 average. It ranks #14,616 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
25
3 guesses
529
4 guesses
1,307
5 guesses
441
6 guesses
43
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

4/5 unique
3 vowels
Common:
ENU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
70%
Green tile
29%
All gray
30%

Feedback distribution

NUQUE can come back 42 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

716 answers
454 answers
278 answers
233 answers
127 answers
99 answers
76 answers
59 answers
56 answers
41 answers
37 answers
23 answers
23 answers
18 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
9 answers
7 answers
7 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
4 answers
4 answers
3 answers
3 answers
3 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

N1U1Q10U1E1
Total: 14 points

Words With Friends

Total: 17 points

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

Strategy after playing NUQUE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing NUQUE:

30% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL
19% chance
Suggested:
ALTER
12% chance
Suggested:
SLART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

30.2%
TRAIL 5.94 bits
19.1%
ALTER 5.27 bits
11.7%
SLART 5.25 bits
9.8%
LAIRY 4.99 bits
5.3%
ALIEN 4.44 bits
4.2%
SURLY 3.83 bits
3.2%
SHART 4.70 bits
2.5%
SAINT 4.17 bits
2.4%
ROAST 3.89 bits
1.7%
COAST 4.29 bits

Research on NUQUE

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

Optimal play

Opening with NUQUE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.99 guesses and ranks #14,675 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 NUQUE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.98, at or below the proven-optimal 3.99, 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 NUHK. 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.