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

RUGBY

Yes, RUGBY was the Wordle answer on December 18, 2025 (Wordle #1643).

As an opener, it rules out about 86.0% of possible answers.

Open Solver with RUGBY Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɹʌɡbi//ˈɹʊɡbi//ˈɾʌɡbe/

Noun

A form of football in which players can hold or kick an ovoid ball; rugby football. The ball cannot be handled forwards and points are scored by touching the ball to the ground in the area past the opponent's territory or by kicking the ball between goalposts and over a crossbar.

“The scrum is a distinctive element of rugby.”

Noun

The form of the game known as rugby union (see the usage note).

Verb

To play rugby.

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: December 18, 2025 (#1643).

See the full page for that puzzle: December 18, 2025 (#1643).

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

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How RUGBY performs as a guess

RUGBY 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 69.7% of games, misses completely in 30.3%, and leaves about 332 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,192 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.74 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.

R___Y R in the 1st position and Y in the 5th position R__B_ R in the 1st position and B 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 RUGBY.

First-turn measures

All four describe RUGBY 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.

3.96 Entropy (bits)
332 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
86.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 21% of evaluated openers
1.98 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How RUGBY 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.

3.74 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#9,192 Rank among openers
Opening with RUGBY solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.74 average. It ranks #9,192 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
52
3 guesses
798
4 guesses
1,217
5 guesses
270
6 guesses
16
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
1 vowels
Common:
RU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
70%
Green tile
27%
All gray
30%

Example solver route

R O A T E
R I G I D
R U G B Y

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches RUGBY in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

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

720 answers
425 answers
178 answers
139 answers
89 answers
82 answers
57 answers
56 answers
55 answers
53 answers
53 answers
51 answers
35 answers
26 answers
23 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
11 answers
11 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1U1G2B3Y4
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Try next

SLATE TOISE SALET STONE OLATE ALONE

Strategy after playing RUGBY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing RUGBY:

30% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
18% chance
Suggested:
TOISE
7% chance
Suggested:
SALET

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

30.3% →
SLATE 6.33 bits
17.9% →
TOISE 5.57 bits
7.5% →
SALET 4.96 bits
5.9% →
STONE 5.24 bits
3.7% →
OLATE 5.16 bits
3.5% →
ALONE 5.33 bits
2.4% →
BRANE 4.53 bits
2.4% →
SMITE 4.58 bits
2.3% →
ATONE 4.57 bits
2.2% →
TARRE 4.33 bits

Research on RUGBY

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

Optimal play

Opening with RUGBY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,741 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.91 guesses at best and is rank #4,341 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.74, at or below the proven-optimal 3.78, 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 RUHGBEE.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, RUGBY is a kind of football.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
RUGBY sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 25 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A2); among the first words English learners study.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 8, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 85 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.7 of 5).

In a sentence

He is good at rugby.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
He was a rugby player.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).