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

SCUGS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 81.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of scug

Noun

plural of scug

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 SCUGS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SCUGS 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 61.8% of games, misses completely in 38.2%, and leaves about 435 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,405 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.82 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 SCUGS 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.

3.50 Entropy (bits)
435 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
81.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 7% of evaluated openers
2.45 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SCUGS 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.

3.82 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#12,405 Rank among openers
Opening with SCUGS left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.82 average. It ranks #12,405 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
30
3 guesses
693
4 guesses
1,316
5 guesses
291
6 guesses
22
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
1 vowels
Common:
SU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
62%
Green tile
26%
All gray
38%

Feedback distribution

SCUGS can come back 59 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

906 answers
279 answers
244 answers
148 answers
141 answers
132 answers
66 answers
51 answers
41 answers
28 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
22 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
5 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1C3U1G2S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing SCUGS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SCUGS:

38% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
12% chance
Suggested:
CHARE
10% chance
Suggested:
PLATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

38.2%
ARIEL 6.14 bits
11.8%
CHARE 5.53 bits
10.3%
PLATE 5.41 bits
6.2%
TRONE 5.46 bits
5.9%
LATER 4.90 bits
5.6%
TIARE 5.54 bits
2.8%
TRONE 4.70 bits
2.1%
DAINE 4.63 bits
1.7%
CLINE 4.03 bits
1.2%
ALONE 3.94 bits

Research on SCUGS

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

Optimal play

Opening with SCUGS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.88 guesses and ranks #13,370 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.00 guesses at best and is rank #6,150 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.82, at or below the proven-optimal 3.88, 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 SKUHGZ. Estimated pronunciation

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

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.