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

PUNGO

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

No dictionary definition for PUNGO is recorded in our sourced data.

Meaning and pronunciation

We do not have a sourced definition for this word yet.

Check PUNGO on Wiktionary or report a missing entry.

Use PUNGO in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 87.2% 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

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 PUNGO performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PUNGO 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 68.9% of games, misses completely in 31.1%, and leaves about 305 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,416 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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 PUNGO 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.

4.19 Entropy (bits)
305 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.2% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PUNGO 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.

3.69 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#6,416 Rank among openers
Opening with PUNGO solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.69 average. It ranks #6,416 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
49
3 guesses
868
4 guesses
1,210
5 guesses
212
6 guesses
15

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
NOU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
69%
Green tile
22%
All gray
31%

Feedback distribution

PUNGO can come back 86 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

738 answers
305 answers
150 answers
110 answers
100 answers
93 answers
92 answers
70 answers
59 answers
57 answers
44 answers
42 answers
37 answers
34 answers
28 answers
28 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
18 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3U1N1G2O1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing PUNGO

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PUNGO:

31% chance
Suggested:
REAST
13% chance
Suggested:
CRATE
6% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

31.1%
REAST 6.29 bits
12.8%
CRATE 5.30 bits
6.3%
ARIEL 5.31 bits
4.6%
STALE 5.40 bits
4.2%
SLATE 5.25 bits
3.9%
SCIRE 4.58 bits
3.9%
SOARE 4.45 bits
2.9%
LAGER 5.01 bits
2.5%
TARSE 4.89 bits
2.4%
CADIE 4.57 bits

Research on PUNGO

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

Optimal play

Opening with PUNGO, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.74 guesses and ranks #7,306 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.85 guesses at best and is rank #2,719 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.74, 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
PUNGO sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).