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

PUNIM

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

As an opener, it rules out about 87.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈpʊn.ɪm/

Noun

The face (front part of the head).

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 PUNIM performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PUNIM 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 69.2% of games, misses completely in 30.8%, and leaves about 292 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,362 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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 PUNIM 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.

4.26 Entropy (bits)
292 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 36% of evaluated openers
1.69 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PUNIM 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#5,362 Rank among openers
Opening with PUNIM left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.67 means those games clustered within about 0.67 of a guess of the 3.68 average. It ranks #5,362 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
49
3 guesses
878
4 guesses
1,220
5 guesses
197
6 guesses
8
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:
INU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
69%
Green tile
25%
All gray
31%

Feedback distribution

PUNIM can come back 90 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

732 answers
237 answers
170 answers
133 answers
96 answers
95 answers
93 answers
86 answers
65 answers
54 answers
53 answers
51 answers
33 answers
27 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3U1N1I1M3
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing PUNIM

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PUNIM:

31% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
10% chance
Suggested:
STILE
7% chance
Suggested:
SOREL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

30.8%
TARSE 6.31 bits
10.0%
STILE 5.23 bits
7.2%
SOREL 5.20 bits
5.6%
TORSE 5.35 bits
4.0%
SPAER 5.39 bits
4.0%
CARLE 5.33 bits
3.9%
TARGE 4.43 bits
3.6%
LATER 4.58 bits
2.7%
TALER 5.02 bits
2.3%
TARSE 5.03 bits

Research on PUNIM

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

Optimal play

Opening with PUNIM, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #6,748 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 #2,756 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.73, 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 PUHNIHM. Estimated pronunciation

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

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.