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

RUNIC

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɹuːnɪk/

Adjective

Of, pertaining to, or written using runes.

Adjective

Of a song or verse, mystically or obscurely expressed.

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 RUNIC performs as a guess

Wordle accepts RUNIC 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 80.9% of games, misses completely in 19.1%, and leaves about 175 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,782 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 RUNIC 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.

4.73 Entropy (bits)
175 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 67% of evaluated openers
1.22 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How RUNIC 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.

3.62 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#1,782 Rank among openers
Opening with RUNIC left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.62 average. It ranks #1,782 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
48
3 guesses
1,006
4 guesses
1,117
5 guesses
165
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
2 vowels
Common:
INRU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
81%
Green tile
23%
All gray
19%

Feedback distribution

RUNIC can come back 93 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

453 answers
316 answers
167 answers
126 answers
123 answers
91 answers
86 answers
79 answers
77 answers
73 answers
54 answers
49 answers
44 answers
40 answers
39 answers
38 answers
34 answers
30 answers
29 answers
21 answers
21 answers
21 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1U1N1I1C3
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing RUNIC

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing RUNIC:

19% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
13% chance
Suggested:
SATED
7% chance
Suggested:
SALET

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.1%
SLATE 6.50 bits
13.3%
SATED 5.43 bits
7.0%
SALET 5.30 bits
5.3%
THALE 5.47 bits
5.2%
SALET 5.26 bits
3.8%
STILE 4.51 bits
3.6%
SLATE 5.24 bits
3.3%
CRATE 4.87 bits
3.2%
STAGE 4.48 bits
3.1%
SADLY 4.14 bits

Research on RUNIC

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

Optimal play

Opening with RUNIC, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,528 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.81 guesses at best and is rank #1,775 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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 ROONIHK. Estimated pronunciation

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

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
RUNIC sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).