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

RUNER

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɹuːnə(ɹ)/

Noun

A bard, or learned man, among the ancient Goths.

Noun

Someone who writes runes

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 RUNER performs as a guess

Wordle accepts RUNER 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 81.1% of games, misses completely in 18.9%, and leaves about 184 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,094 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe RUNER 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.

4.58 Entropy (bits)
184 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 57% of evaluated openers
1.37 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How RUNER 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
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#9,094 Rank among openers
Opening with RUNER solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.74 average. It ranks #9,094 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
54
3 guesses
809
4 guesses
1,206
5 guesses
260
6 guesses
25
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
2 vowels
Common:
ENRU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
81%
Green tile
31%
All gray
19%

Feedback distribution

RUNER can come back 91 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

448 answers
322 answers
198 answers
147 answers
128 answers
94 answers
85 answers
81 answers
81 answers
80 answers
58 answers
53 answers
49 answers
43 answers
39 answers
38 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
25 answers
23 answers
21 answers
19 answers
16 answers
15 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1U1N1E1R1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing RUNER

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing RUNER:

19% chance
Suggested:
SALTY
14% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
8% chance
Suggested:
COAST

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.9%
SALTY 5.82 bits
13.6%
SLATE 5.81 bits
8.3%
COAST 5.53 bits
6.2%
ORATE 4.64 bits
5.4%
SLANT 5.25 bits
4.0%
COAST 3.44 bits
3.6%
SADLY 4.20 bits
3.4%
BETEL 4.27 bits
3.4%
COAST 4.94 bits
3.4%
ALINE 4.51 bits

Research on RUNER

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

Optimal play

Opening with RUNER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #7,829 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 RUNER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.74, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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 ROONUR. 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.