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

SCULS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 86.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of scul

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 SCULS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SCULS 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 68.7% of games, misses completely in 31.3%, and leaves about 324 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,598 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.75 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 SCULS 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.

3.92 Entropy (bits)
324 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
86.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 19% of evaluated openers
2.02 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SCULS 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.

3.75 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#9,598 Rank among openers
Opening with SCULS left 3 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 3.75 average. It ranks #9,598 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
39
3 guesses
804
4 guesses
1,225
5 guesses
264
6 guesses
19
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:
LSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
69%
Green tile
28%
All gray
31%

Feedback distribution

SCULS can come back 73 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

744 answers
275 answers
222 answers
187 answers
134 answers
118 answers
86 answers
58 answers
55 answers
39 answers
31 answers
30 answers
29 answers
26 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
11 answers
11 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1C3U1L1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing SCULS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SCULS:

31% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
12% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
9% chance
Suggested:
TIARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

31.3%
ROATE 6.12 bits
11.6%
ROATE 5.38 bits
9.4%
TIARE 5.63 bits
7.9%
PARTE 5.48 bits
5.6%
RONTE 5.01 bits
5.0%
ROATE 5.62 bits
3.6%
DAINE 4.79 bits
2.4%
CLEAN 4.74 bits
2.3%
GRATE 4.64 bits
1.6%
ATONE 4.44 bits

Research on SCULS

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

Optimal play

Opening with SCULS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.82 guesses and ranks #11,513 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.94 guesses at best and is rank #5,165 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.75, at or below the proven-optimal 3.82, 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 SKUHLZ. 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.