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

RUSTY

Yes, RUSTY was the Wordle answer on June 26, 2022 (Wordle #372).

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɹʌsti/

Adjective

Marked or corroded by rust.

Adjective

Of the rust color, reddish or reddish-brown.

Noun

A gun or in particular an old or worn one.

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

Ellipsis of rusty one more often used for this, or from the general epithet rusty given to various particular firearm names—earlier both were applied in Cockney rhyming slang for other machines, including swords in their day, but the present coinage has not more than a loose connection to this and is from the preference for used or antique firearms due to their being easier or cheaper to obtain.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it RUHSTEE.

Rhymes with DUSTY BUSTY MUSTY LUSTY GUSTY

Related meanings

Synonyms rust old unskilled

Opposites new skilled

In a sentence

I may be a little rusty.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I'm a little rusty at this.
© tatoeba.org contributor Hybrid (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use RUSTY in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 92.7% of possible answers.

Open Solver with RUSTY Open Word Finder

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: June 26, 2022 (#372).

See the full page for that puzzle: June 26, 2022 (#372).

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

Wordle Observatory · optional

Played this Wordle?

Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds

Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.

See the public data

The Observatory retains the selected puzzle, result, rating, optional Hard Mode answer and a random one-puzzle receipt. It stores no answer word, grid, guesses, account, email, IP-derived ID or reusable player identifier.

How verification and withdrawal work

The answer word and timezone are used transiently to verify this page, then discarded. The receipt prevents duplicate submissions and lets this browser withdraw later; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. Read the full privacy details.

How RUSTY performs as a guess

RUSTY is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 81.8% of games, misses completely in 18.2%, and leaves about 173 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,003 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.65 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__T_ R in the 1st position and T in the 4th position _U__Y U in the 2nd position and Y in the 5th position RU_TY R in the 1st position, U in the 2nd position, T in the 4th position, and Y in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in RUSTY.

First-turn measures

All four describe RUSTY 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)
173 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
92.7% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How RUSTY 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.

3.65 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#4,003 Rank among openers
Opening with RUSTY left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.65 average. It ranks #4,003 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
56
3 guesses
930
4 guesses
1,155
5 guesses
190
6 guesses
20

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
RSTU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
30%
All gray
18%

Example solver route

R O A T E
R U S T Y

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches RUSTY in 2 guesses.

Feedback distribution

RUSTY can come back 95 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

433 answers
318 answers
172 answers
166 answers
132 answers
94 answers
90 answers
82 answers
74 answers
48 answers
48 answers
48 answers
41 answers
38 answers
36 answers
33 answers
32 answers
31 answers
31 answers
23 answers
23 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1U1S1T1Y4
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Try next

ALINE CANOE PLANE LEANT ALONE TREAT

Strategy after playing RUSTY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing RUSTY:

18% chance
Suggested:
ALINE
13% chance
Suggested:
CANOE
7% chance
Suggested:
PLANE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.2% →
ALINE 6.28 bits
13.3% →
CANOE 5.39 bits
7.2% →
PLANE 5.48 bits
7.0% →
LEANT 5.28 bits
5.5% →
ALONE 4.74 bits
3.9% →
TREAT 4.67 bits
3.8% →
STALE 4.79 bits
3.4% →
SHAPE 4.83 bits
3.1% →
CLONE 4.87 bits
2.0% →
ANILE 4.46 bits

Research on RUSTY

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

Optimal play

Opening with RUSTY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,849 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 RUSTY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.65, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
RUSTY sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 4 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 6, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 77 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.6 of 5).

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).