Accepted guess Not a possible answer C tier for first-turn info

PULAS

PULAS is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.

As an opener, it rules out about 92.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Alternative form of palas.

Noun

plural of pula.

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

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

Past Wordle answer

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

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

How PULAS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PULAS as a guess, but the solver does not list it as a possible answer.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 80.4% of games, misses completely in 19.6%, and leaves about 181 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,698 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.63 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 PULAS 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.

4.73 Entropy (bits)
181 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 67% of evaluated openers
1.22 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PULAS 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.

3.63 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#2,698 Rank among openers
Opening with PULAS 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 3.63 average. It ranks #2,698 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
61
3 guesses
963
4 guesses
1,125
5 guesses
189
6 guesses
15
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

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ALSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
25%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

PULAS can come back 100 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

466 answers
320 answers
170 answers
152 answers
104 answers
102 answers
86 answers
80 answers
51 answers
50 answers
47 answers
43 answers
42 answers
41 answers
37 answers
36 answers
35 answers
33 answers
27 answers
26 answers
23 answers
21 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3U1L1A1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing PULAS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PULAS:

20% chance
Suggested:
TONER
13% chance
Suggested:
CARNE
7% chance
Suggested:
TONER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.6%
TONER 6.11 bits
13.5%
CARNE 5.50 bits
7.2%
TONER 5.58 bits
6.4%
NOIRE 4.99 bits
4.4%
GLARE 4.57 bits
4.3%
REAST 4.92 bits
3.6%
RONTE 5.40 bits
3.4%
CRONE 4.27 bits
2.1%
TRODE 4.56 bits
2.1%
CONTE 4.40 bits

Research on PULAS

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

Optimal play

Opening with PULAS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,310 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.79 guesses at best and is rank #1,072 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.63, 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.

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it PYOOLUHZ. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, PULAS is a kind of unit.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0).