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

RUNUP

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

As an opener, it rules out about 85.9% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Alternative spelling of run-up.

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 RUNUP performs as a guess

Wordle accepts RUNUP 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 70.6% of games, misses completely in 29.4%, and leaves about 335 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,158 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.76 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 RUNUP 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.

3.79 Entropy (bits)
335 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
85.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 14% of evaluated openers
2.16 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How RUNUP 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.

3.76 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#10,158 Rank among openers
Opening with RUNUP 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 3.76 average. It ranks #10,158 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
32
3 guesses
782
4 guesses
1,260
5 guesses
263
6 guesses
15
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:
NRU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
71%
Green tile
22%
All gray
29%

Feedback distribution

RUNUP can come back 64 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

697 answers
448 answers
221 answers
130 answers
92 answers
82 answers
77 answers
72 answers
67 answers
60 answers
49 answers
33 answers
30 answers
28 answers
24 answers
24 answers
20 answers
18 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1U1N1U1P3
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing RUNUP

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing RUNUP:

29% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
19% chance
Suggested:
ORATE
9% chance
Suggested:
TOILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

29.4%
SLATE 6.33 bits
18.9%
ORATE 5.39 bits
9.3%
TOILE 5.46 bits
5.5%
SLATE 5.71 bits
3.9%
STILE 4.63 bits
3.5%
CAGEY 4.58 bits
3.2%
IRATE 4.54 bits
3.0%
SLATE 4.97 bits
2.8%
PAISE 4.93 bits
2.5%
OATER 4.50 bits

Research on RUNUP

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

Optimal play

Opening with RUNUP, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.83 guesses and ranks #11,953 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.96 guesses at best and is rank #5,426 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.76, at or below the proven-optimal 3.83, 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 RUHNUHP.

Rhymes with SUNUP

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, RUNUP is a kind of increase.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
RUNUP 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); 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).