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

POLYP

Yes, POLYP was the Wordle answer on August 6, 2023 (Wordle #778).

As an opener, it rules out about 84.6% of possible answers.

Open Solver with POLYP Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈpɑlɪp//ˈpɒlɪp/

Noun

A cylindrical coelenterate, such as the hydra, having a mouth surrounded with tentacles.

Noun

An abnormal growth protruding from a mucous membrane.

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: August 6, 2023 (#778).

See the full page for that puzzle: August 6, 2023 (#778).

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

Wordle Observatory · optional

Played this Wordle?

Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds

Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.

See the public data

The Observatory retains the selected puzzle, result, rating, optional Hard Mode answer and a random one-puzzle receipt. It stores no answer word, grid, guesses, account, email, IP-derived ID or reusable player identifier.

How verification and withdrawal work

The answer word and timezone are used transiently to verify this page, then discarded. The receipt prevents duplicate submissions and lets this browser withdraw later; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. Read the full privacy details.

How POLYP performs as a guess

POLYP 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 66.5% of games, misses completely in 33.5%, and leaves about 366 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,104 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.85 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___P P in the 1st position and P in the 5th position P__Y_ P in the 1st position and Y in the 4th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe POLYP 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.

3.69 Entropy (bits)
366 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
84.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 11% of evaluated openers
2.26 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How POLYP 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.

3.85 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#13,104 Rank among openers
Opening with POLYP left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.85 average. It ranks #13,104 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
34
3 guesses
688
4 guesses
1,260
5 guesses
340
6 guesses
30
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

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
LO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
66%
Green tile
24%
All gray
34%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S C O L D
L O G I N
P O L Y P

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches POLYP in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

POLYP can come back 62 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

795 answers
308 answers
241 answers
193 answers
148 answers
67 answers
65 answers
46 answers
44 answers
43 answers
42 answers
38 answers
31 answers
30 answers
26 answers
25 answers
21 answers
21 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
13 answers
13 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3O1L1Y4P3
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 14 points

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

Try next

TIARE RAISE SANER DANSE CRUET GLACE

Strategy after playing POLYP

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing POLYP:

33% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
13% chance
Suggested:
RAISE
10% chance
Suggested:
SANER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

33.5% →
TIARE 6.30 bits
13.0% →
RAISE 5.30 bits
10.2% →
SANER 5.30 bits
8.1% →
DANSE 4.94 bits
6.2% →
CRUET 4.92 bits
2.8% →
GLACE 3.97 bits
2.7% →
TARSE 5.23 bits
1.9% →
DRONE 3.63 bits
1.9% →
CARNE 4.90 bits
1.8% →
SETAE 4.51 bits

Research on POLYP

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

Optimal play

Opening with POLYP, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.84 guesses and ranks #12,318 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with POLYP can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.85; proven optimal play reaches 3.84. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it PAHLIHP.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, POLYP is a kind of growth or animal.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
POLYP 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 (3.1 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).