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

PULPY

Yes, PULPY was the Wordle answer on November 4, 2021 (Wordle #138).

As an opener, it rules out about 81.0% of possible answers.

Open Solver with PULPY Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Adjective

Having the characteristics of pulp.

“the pulpy texture of overripe fruit”

Adjective

Having the characteristics of pulp fiction; thus, having a garish focus on sex and violence.

“a pulpy TV thriller”

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: November 4, 2021 (#138).

See the full page for that puzzle: November 4, 2021 (#138).

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 PULPY performs as a guess

PULPY 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 60.9% of games, misses completely in 39.1%, and leaves about 450 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,036 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.84 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___Y P in the 1st position and Y in the 5th position P__P_ P in the 1st position and P in the 4th position _U__Y U in the 2nd position and Y in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe PULPY 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.

3.52 Entropy (bits)
450 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
81.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 7% of evaluated openers
2.43 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PULPY 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.

3.84 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.74 Spread of game lengths
#13,036 Rank among openers
Opening with PULPY left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.74 means those games clustered within about 0.74 of a guess of the 3.84 average. It ranks #13,036 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
46
3 guesses
672
4 guesses
1,266
5 guesses
335
6 guesses
33
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:
LU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
61%
Green tile
30%
All gray
39%

Example solver route

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

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches PULPY in 5 guesses. See the trap-family guide for similar endgames.

Feedback distribution

PULPY can come back 72 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

928 answers
334 answers
186 answers
166 answers
90 answers
87 answers
58 answers
58 answers
58 answers
39 answers
39 answers
29 answers
27 answers
25 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
19 answers
12 answers
11 answers
8 answers
7 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
4 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3U1L1P3Y4
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 15 points

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

Try next

TIARE OLATE SARED TRONE TRACE TARSE

Strategy after playing PULPY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PULPY:

39% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
14% chance
Suggested:
OLATE
8% chance
Suggested:
SARED

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

39.1% →
TIARE 6.31 bits
14.1% →
OLATE 5.23 bits
7.8% →
SARED 4.97 bits
7.0% →
TRONE 5.40 bits
3.8% →
TRACE 4.66 bits
3.7% →
TARSE 5.34 bits
2.4% →
SAICE 4.58 bits
2.4% →
FLUTE 4.24 bits
2.4% →
CRONE 5.09 bits
1.6% →
LAIDE 3.84 bits

Research on PULPY

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

Optimal play

Opening with PULPY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.87 guesses and ranks #13,131 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 PULPY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.84, at or below the proven-optimal 3.87, 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 PUULPEE. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

Opposites WOODY

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
PULPY 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.

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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).