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

RUSKY

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Alternative form of Russki.

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 RUSKY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts RUSKY 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 76.0% of games, misses completely in 24.0%, and leaves about 256 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,339 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.77 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 RUSKY 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.

4.17 Entropy (bits)
256 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 31% of evaluated openers
1.77 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How RUSKY 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.

3.77 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#10,339 Rank among openers
Opening with RUSKY left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.77 average. It ranks #10,339 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
40
3 guesses
798
4 guesses
1,202
5 guesses
288
6 guesses
23
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:
RSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
27%
All gray
24%

Feedback distribution

RUSKY can come back 73 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

569 answers
394 answers
235 answers
159 answers
108 answers
102 answers
70 answers
58 answers
53 answers
51 answers
51 answers
50 answers
33 answers
33 answers
32 answers
30 answers
27 answers
24 answers
22 answers
19 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1U1S1K5Y4
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing RUSKY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing RUSKY:

24% chance
Suggested:
ALINE
17% chance
Suggested:
IRATE
10% chance
Suggested:
STALE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

24.0%
ALINE 6.18 bits
16.6%
IRATE 5.41 bits
9.9%
STALE 5.72 bits
6.7%
ANOLE 4.74 bits
4.5%
ATONE 4.91 bits
4.3%
STRAE 4.94 bits
2.9%
BLITE 4.68 bits
2.4%
LIANE 4.40 bits
2.2%
TARRE 4.12 bits
2.1%
ANOLE 4.94 bits

Research on RUSKY

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

Optimal play

Opening with RUSKY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,597 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 RUSKY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.77, 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 RUHSKEE. Estimated pronunciation

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

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
RUSKY 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), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).