PLUCK
Yes, PLUCK was the Wordle answer on December 21, 2021 (Wordle #185).
As an opener, it rules out about 84.9% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /plʌk//plʊk/
- Verb
-
To pull something sharply; to pull something out
“She plucked the phone from her bag and dialled.”
- Verb
-
To take or remove (someone) quickly from a particular place or situation.
- Noun
-
An instance of plucking or pulling sharply.
“Those tiny birds are hardly worth the tedious pluck.”
- Noun
-
The lungs, heart with trachea and often oesophagus removed from slaughtered animals.
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: December 21, 2021 (#185).
See the full page for that puzzle: December 21, 2021 (#185).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How PLUCK performs as a guess
PLUCK is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 65.1% of games, misses completely in 34.9%, and leaves about 358 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,835 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe PLUCK 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How PLUCK 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches PLUCK in 5 guesses. See the trap-family guide for similar endgames.
Feedback distribution
PLUCK can come back 91 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for PLUCK; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing PLUCK
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to PLUCK.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing PLUCK:
Research on PLUCK
Game-tree analysis and word research for PLUCK, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with PLUCK, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.74 guesses and ranks #7,617 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.83 guesses at best and is rank #2,333 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, at or below the proven-optimal 3.74, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, PLUCK is a kind of courage or pull.
Synonyms pick pull roll hook rob tear
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- PLUCK sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Learner level
- Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
In a sentence
Where did you pluck them?
He knows how to pluck a chicken.
Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS.