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

SCULP

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

To flay.

Verb

To sculpture; to carve or engrave.

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 SCULP performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SCULP 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 73.0% of games, misses completely in 27.0%, and leaves about 245 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,123 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 SCULP 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.

4.46 Entropy (bits)
245 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 49% of evaluated openers
1.49 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SCULP 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.

3.62 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#2,123 Rank among openers
Opening with SCULP left 1 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 3.62 average. It ranks #2,123 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
72
3 guesses
940
4 guesses
1,157
5 guesses
174
6 guesses
10
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:
LSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
73%
Green tile
28%
All gray
27%

Feedback distribution

SCULP can come back 103 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

640 answers
234 answers
191 answers
147 answers
115 answers
115 answers
99 answers
77 answers
56 answers
46 answers
38 answers
35 answers
34 answers
33 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
25 answers
23 answers
23 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1C3U1L1P3
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing SCULP

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SCULP:

27% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
10% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
8% chance
Suggested:
CRANE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

27.0%
ROATE 6.14 bits
9.9%
ROATE 5.39 bits
8.0%
CRANE 5.58 bits
6.2%
TIARE 5.32 bits
4.8%
RONTE 5.08 bits
4.8%
ROATE 5.55 bits
4.2%
PAIRE 5.41 bits
3.2%
DAINE 4.83 bits
2.4%
CLEAN 4.70 bits
1.9%
GRATE 4.53 bits

Research on SCULP

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

Optimal play

Opening with SCULP, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #4,099 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.78 guesses at best and is rank #772 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.69, 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 SKUHLP. Estimated pronunciation

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

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SCULP 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).