SCRUB
Yes, SCRUB was the Wordle answer on August 16, 2023 (Wordle #788).
As an opener, it rules out about 90.6% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /skɹʌb//skɹʊb/
- Noun
-
A thicket or jungle, often specified by the name of the prevailing plant.
“oak scrub”
- Noun
-
Vegetation judged to be of inferior quality or of little use to humans, though sometimes thick and impenetrable, growing in poor soil or in sand; also, brush.
- Verb
-
To rub hard; to wash with rubbing; usually, to rub with a wet brush, or with something coarse or rough, for the purpose of cleaning or brightening
“to scrub a floor”
- Verb
-
To rub anything hard, especially with a wet brush; to scour
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: August 16, 2023 (#788).
See the full page for that puzzle: August 16, 2023 (#788).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How SCRUB performs as a guess
SCRUB is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 77.4% of games, misses completely in 22.6%, and leaves about 224 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,257 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe SCRUB 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How SCRUB 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches SCRUB in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
SCRUB can come back 84 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for SCRUB; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing SCRUB
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to SCRUB.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing SCRUB:
Research on SCRUB
Game-tree analysis and word research for SCRUB, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with SCRUB, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #6,660 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.83 guesses at best and is rank #2,206 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.73, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, SCRUB is a kind of vegetation or cleaning.
Synonyms bush cancel scratch scrubbing
Opposites improved
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- SCRUB sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 5 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with touch (3.6 of 5).
In a sentence
Where did you scrub them?
Would you scrub my back, please?
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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).