Possible answer Not used yet C tier for first-turn info

PLUSH

PLUSH is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /plʌʃ/

Adjective

Very extravagant.

Adjective

Very expensive, or appearing expensive; opulent, luxurious.

“They lived in a plush apartment complex.”

Noun

A textile fabric with a nap or shag on one side, longer and softer than the nap of velvet.

Noun

A plush toy.

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

Etymology

From French peluche (“fluff, plush”). The fact that historically (in past centuries) plush upholstery was so expensive as to be socially exclusive undoubtedly connects the senses of "luxurious" and "soft".

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it PLUHSH.

Rhymes with BRUSH CRUSH FLUSH BLUSH SLUSH

Related meanings

Synonyms lavish rich

Opposites poor

In a sentence

This plush toy is green.
© tatoeba.org contributor Smoky (CC BY 2.0 FR)
He took me out to a plush restaurant.
© tatoeba.org contributor timmartin (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use PLUSH in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 89.2% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

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

How PLUSH performs as a guess

PLUSH 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 71.6% of games, misses completely in 28.4%, and leaves about 257 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,604 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.65 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 PLUSH 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.

4.49 Entropy (bits)
257 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
89.2% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PLUSH 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.

3.65 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#3,604 Rank among openers
Opening with PLUSH left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.65 average. It ranks #3,604 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
54
3 guesses
958
4 guesses
1,116
5 guesses
210
6 guesses
14

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
LSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
72%
Green tile
28%
All gray
28%

Example solver route

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

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches PLUSH in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

PLUSH can come back 102 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

677 answers
241 answers
163 answers
128 answers
107 answers
104 answers
71 answers
59 answers
57 answers
55 answers
51 answers
47 answers
43 answers
43 answers
42 answers
40 answers
21 answers
21 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3L1U1S1H4
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing PLUSH

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PLUSH:

28% chance
Suggested:
RAINE
10% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
7% chance
Suggested:
TIARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

28.4% →
RAINE 6.11 bits
10.1% →
RAILE 5.31 bits
6.8% →
TIARE 5.56 bits
5.4% →
RONTE 5.12 bits
4.5% →
BRACE 4.97 bits
4.4% →
TIARE 5.71 bits
3.0% →
ROATE 5.07 bits
2.5% →
RIONE 4.98 bits
2.4% →
IRATE 4.64 bits
2.3% →
RAINE 4.56 bits

Research on PLUSH

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

Optimal play

Opening with PLUSH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,549 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 #1,500 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.65, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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
PLUSH 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.

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).