5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess F tier for first-turn info

PLUMB

Yes, PLUMB was the Wordle answer on December 11, 2024 (Wordle #1271).

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /plʌm//plʊm/

Noun

A little mass of lead, or the like, attached to a line, and used by builders, etc., to indicate a vertical direction.

Noun

A weight on the end of a long line, used by sailors to determine the depth of water.

Adjective

Truly vertical, as indicated by a plumb line.

Adjective

Describing an LBW where the batsman is hit on the pads directly in front of their wicket and should be given out.

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

From Middle English plumbe, plumme, from Old French *plombe, from Latin plumba, plural of plumbum.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it PLUHM.

Rhymes with THUMB CRUMB STRUM STUMM

Related meanings

Synonyms CLEAN plum vertical perpendicular

Opposites horizontal inclined

In a sentence

The wall there is not plumb.
© tatoeba.org contributor sundown (CC BY 2.0 FR)
The wall there isn't plumb.
© tatoeba.org contributor sundown (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use PLUMB in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 84.4% of possible answers.

Open Solver with PLUMB Open Word Finder

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: December 11, 2024 (#1271).

See the full page for that puzzle: December 11, 2024 (#1271).

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

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PLUMB in Connections

1 recorded appearance in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.

How PLUMB performs as a guess

PLUMB is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 64.5% of games, misses completely in 35.5%, and leaves about 373 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,036 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

P___B P in the 1st position and B in the 5th position P__M_ P in the 1st position and M in the 4th position _L__B L in the 2nd position and B in the 5th position PL_MB P in the 1st position, L in the 2nd position, M in the 4th position, and B in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in PLUMB.

First-turn measures

All four describe PLUMB 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.

3.86 Entropy (bits)
373 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
84.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PLUMB 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
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#8,036 Rank among openers
Opening with PLUMB 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 3.72 average. It ranks #8,036 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
44
3 guesses
819
4 guesses
1,247
5 guesses
230
6 guesses
12

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
LU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
64%
Green tile
22%
All gray
36%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I M Y
C L U M P
P L U M B

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches PLUMB in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

PLUMB can come back 76 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

847 answers
271 answers
139 answers
129 answers
126 answers
114 answers
104 answers
83 answers
82 answers
36 answers
34 answers
30 answers
28 answers
27 answers
25 answers
25 answers
24 answers
18 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3L1U1M3B3
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 16 points

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

Try next

TIARE RAILE SNORE MORAE IRATE RAISE

Strategy after playing PLUMB

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PLUMB:

36% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
11% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
6% chance
Suggested:
SNORE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

35.5% →
TIARE 6.32 bits
11.4% →
RAILE 5.31 bits
5.8% →
SNORE 5.22 bits
5.4% →
MORAE 5.37 bits
5.3% →
IRATE 5.63 bits
4.8% →
RAISE 5.44 bits
4.4% →
CRANE 5.00 bits
3.5% →
IRATE 4.98 bits
3.4% →
SHART 4.85 bits
1.5% →
SAICE 3.78 bits

Research on PLUMB

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

Optimal play

Opening with PLUMB, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.76 guesses and ranks #8,701 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 #2,893 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.72, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
PLUMB sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.0 of 5).

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).