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

SCUSE

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

No dictionary definition for SCUSE is recorded in our sourced data.

As an opener, it rules out about 90.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

We do not have a sourced definition for this word yet.

Check SCUSE on Wiktionary or report a missing entry.

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 SCUSE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SCUSE 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 78.1% of games, misses completely in 21.9%, and leaves about 233 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,110 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.81 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 SCUSE 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.

4.30 Entropy (bits)
233 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 38% of evaluated openers
1.65 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SCUSE 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.

3.81 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.74 Spread of game lengths
#12,110 Rank among openers
Opening with SCUSE left 4 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.74 means those games clustered within about 0.74 of a guess of the 3.81 average. It ranks #12,110 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
57
3 guesses
697
4 guesses
1,256
5 guesses
307
6 guesses
33
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
2 vowels
Common:
ESU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
40%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

SCUSE can come back 80 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

520 answers
398 answers
187 answers
164 answers
136 answers
118 answers
82 answers
61 answers
58 answers
58 answers
45 answers
42 answers
33 answers
33 answers
30 answers
30 answers
27 answers
25 answers
23 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers
10 answers
8 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1C3U1S1E1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing SCUSE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SCUSE:

22% chance
Suggested:
TALON
17% chance
Suggested:
ALTER
8% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.9%
TALON 5.93 bits
16.8%
ALTER 5.30 bits
7.9%
ARIEL 4.38 bits
6.9%
CAIRN 5.34 bits
5.7%
LAIRY 4.70 bits
5.0%
MURAL 4.55 bits
3.5%
LATER 4.54 bits
2.6%
PATER 4.01 bits
2.4%
TRONE 4.08 bits
2.4%
PARTE 3.70 bits

Research on SCUSE

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

Optimal play

Opening with SCUSE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.82 guesses and ranks #11,401 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.01 guesses at best and is rank #6,334 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.81, 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 SKYOOZ. Estimated pronunciation

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

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SCUSE 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), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).