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

OCULI

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɒk.jʊ.lʌɪ//ˈɑk.jəˌlaɪ/

Noun

plural of oculus

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 OCULI performs as a guess

Wordle accepts OCULI 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 82.4% of games, misses completely in 17.6%, and leaves about 183 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,462 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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 OCULI 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.

4.51 Entropy (bits)
183 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 52% of evaluated openers
1.44 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How OCULI 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.

3.69 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#6,462 Rank among openers
Opening with OCULI left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.69 average. It ranks #6,462 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
47
3 guesses
871
4 guesses
1,209
5 guesses
204
6 guesses
20
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
3 vowels
Common:
ILOU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
17%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

OCULI can come back 83 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

417 answers
297 answers
277 answers
157 answers
126 answers
114 answers
87 answers
86 answers
66 answers
63 answers
59 answers
56 answers
55 answers
35 answers
32 answers
32 answers
29 answers
28 answers
24 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
16 answers
15 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

O1C3U1L1I1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing OCULI

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing OCULI:

18% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
13% chance
Suggested:
TRINE
12% chance
Suggested:
TARSE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.6%
TARSE 6.16 bits
12.5%
TRINE 5.56 bits
11.7%
TARSE 5.47 bits
6.6%
REAST 5.30 bits
5.3%
MARSE 4.94 bits
4.8%
CRATE 5.51 bits
3.7%
TIARE 4.57 bits
3.6%
SOARE 4.20 bits
2.8%
PHARE 4.57 bits
2.7%
CRANE 4.75 bits

Research on OCULI

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

Optimal play

Opening with OCULI, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.76 guesses and ranks #8,642 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.87 guesses at best and is rank #3,348 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, 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.

How it sounds

Three syllables, stress on the second syllable Say it OHKOOLYOO. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, OCULI is a kind of receptor.

Synonyms eye OPTIC

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
OCULI 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).