PUMPS
PUMPS is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /pʌmps/
- Noun
-
plural of pump
- Verb
-
third-person singular simple present indicative of pump
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
How it sounds
One syllable Say it PUHMPS.
Rhymes with JUMPS BUMPS DUMPS LUMPS MUMPS
Related meanings
Synonyms HEART ticker
In a sentence
The pumps worked for days.
The pumps have worked for days.
Use PUMPS in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 77.4% 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
NoThe solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.
Past Wordle answer
No completed appearanceNo 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.
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See what the public sample says →How PUMPS performs as a guess
Wordle accepts PUMPS 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 56.1% of games, misses completely in 43.9%, and leaves about 539 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,243 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe PUMPS 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 PUMPS 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
Feedback distribution
PUMPS can come back 64 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 PUMPS; 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 PUMPS
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to PUMPS.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing PUMPS:
Research on PUMPS
Game-tree analysis and word research for PUMPS, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with PUMPS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.87 guesses and ranks #13,330 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.99 guesses at best and is rank #6,070 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.85, 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.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- PUMPS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 7 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 9, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 79 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.8 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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).