PLUME
Yes, PLUME was the Wordle answer on May 1, 2026 (Wordle #1777).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈpluːm//ˈpljuːm//ˈplum/
- Noun
-
A token of honour or prowess; that on which one prides oneself; a prize or reward.
- Noun
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The vane (“flattened, web-like part”) of a feather, especially when on a quill pen or the fletching of an arrow.
- Verb
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To adorn, cover, or furnish with feathers or plumes, or as if with feathers or plumes.
- Verb
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Chiefly of a bird: to arrange and preen the feathers of, specifically in preparation for flight; hence (figurative), to prepare for (something).
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
Sense 1 (“to adorn, cover, or furnish with feathers or plumes”) is derived from Anglo-Norman plumer (“to cover with or provide with feathers”), or its etymon Latin plūmāre, the present active infinitive of plūmō (“to grow feathers, to fledge; to cover with feathers, to feather; to embroider with a feathery pattern”) (and compare Late Latin plūmō (“to attach feathers to arrows; of a hawk: to pluck the feathers from prey; (figurative) to celebrate, praise”)), from plūma (“feather; plumage; down”)…
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it PLOOM.
Rhymes with BLOOM GROOM BROOM GLOOM FLUME
Related meanings
Synonyms DRESS PRIDE hook rob soak congratulate
In a sentence
There was a plume of smoke coming from the shack.
Use PLUME in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 92.2% of possible answers.
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: May 1, 2026 (#1777).
See the full page for that puzzle: May 1, 2026 (#1777).
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 →PLUME in Connections
1 recorded appearance in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #1044
Reveal this appearance's category
PLUME appeared in MASS OF SMOKE (yellow group).
How PLUME performs as a guess
PLUME 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 79.9% of games, misses completely in 20.1%, and leaves about 186 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,332 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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 PLUME 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 PLUME 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 PLUME in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
PLUME can come back 102 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 PLUME; 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 PLUME
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to PLUME.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing PLUME:
Research on PLUME
Game-tree analysis and word research for PLUME, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with PLUME, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,543 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.80 guesses at best and is rank #1,372 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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
- PLUME sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 2 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.2 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).