5 FiveLetterWords
Accepted guess Not a possible answer B tier for first-turn info

SCARP

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.6% of possible answers.

Open Solver with SCARP Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /skɑːp//skɑɹp/

Noun

The steep artificial slope below a fort's parapet.

Noun

A cliff at the edge of a plateau or ridge caused by erosion or faulting; the steeper side of an escarpment.

Verb

to cut, scrape, erode, or otherwise make into a scarp or escarpment

“to scarp the face of a ditch or a rock”

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 SCARP performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SCARP 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 82.9% of games, misses completely in 17.1%, and leaves about 152 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #950 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.60 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.

S___P S in the 1st position and P in the 5th position S__R_ S in the 1st position and R in the 4th position _C__P C in the 2nd position and P in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe SCARP 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.

4.93 Entropy (bits)
152 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 80% of evaluated openers
1.01 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SCARP 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.

3.60 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#950 Rank among openers
Opening with SCARP left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.67 means those games clustered within about 0.67 of a guess of the 3.60 average. It ranks #950 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
61
3 guesses
996
4 guesses
1,133
5 guesses
149
6 guesses
12
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:
ARS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
30%
All gray
17%

Feedback distribution

SCARP can come back 105 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

406 answers
250 answers
228 answers
129 answers
116 answers
109 answers
77 answers
62 answers
61 answers
59 answers
53 answers
43 answers
43 answers
42 answers
41 answers
39 answers
37 answers
34 answers
28 answers
27 answers
24 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
16 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1C3A1R1P3
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Try next

TOILE CLINE TALER TOISE POUTY BLITE

Strategy after playing SCARP

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SCARP:

17% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
11% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
10% chance
Suggested:
TOILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.1% →
TOILE 6.14 bits
10.5% →
TOILE 5.26 bits
9.6% →
TOILE 5.31 bits
5.4% →
CLINE 5.30 bits
4.9% →
TOILE 5.06 bits
4.6% →
TALER 4.66 bits
3.2% →
TOISE 4.94 bits
2.6% →
POUTY 4.73 bits
2.6% →
BLITE 4.47 bits
2.5% →
TOILE 4.30 bits

Research on SCARP

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

Optimal play

Opening with SCARP, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.65 guesses and ranks #1,614 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.75 guesses at best and is rank #352 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, at or below the proven-optimal 3.65, 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

One syllable Say it SKAHRP.

Rhymes with SHARP

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SCARP is a kind of side or defense.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SCARP 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); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).