5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess C tier for first-turn info

SHRUG

Yes, SHRUG was the Wordle answer on August 19, 2022 (Wordle #426).

As an opener, it rules out about 90.3% of possible answers.

Open Solver with SHRUG Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈʃɹʌɡ/[ˈʃɹʷʌɡ]/ˈʃɹɐɡ/

Noun

A lifting of the shoulders to signal indifference or a casual lack of knowledge.

“He dismissed my comment with a shrug.”

Noun

A cropped, cardigan-like garment with short or long sleeves, typically knitted.

Verb

To raise (the shoulders) to express uncertainty, lack of concern, (formerly) dread, etc.

“I asked him for an answer and he just shrugged.”

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: August 19, 2022 (#426).

See the full page for that puzzle: August 19, 2022 (#426).

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

Wordle Observatory · optional

Played this Wordle?

Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds

Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.

See the public data

The Observatory retains the selected puzzle, result, rating, optional Hard Mode answer and a random one-puzzle receipt. It stores no answer word, grid, guesses, account, email, IP-derived ID or reusable player identifier.

How verification and withdrawal work

The answer word and timezone are used transiently to verify this page, then discarded. The receipt prevents duplicate submissions and lets this browser withdraw later; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. Read the full privacy details.

How SHRUG performs as a guess

SHRUG 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 76.7% of games, misses completely in 23.3%, and leaves about 230 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,950 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.67 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

S___G S in the 1st position and G in the 5th position S__U_ S in the 1st position and U in the 4th position _H__G H in the 2nd position and G in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in SHRUG.

First-turn measures

All four describe SHRUG 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.

4.45 Entropy (bits)
230 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
90.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 48% of evaluated openers
1.50 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SHRUG 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.

3.67 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#4,950 Rank among openers
Opening with SHRUG solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.67 average. It ranks #4,950 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
45
3 guesses
946
4 guesses
1,121
5 guesses
222
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

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
RSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
77%
Green tile
29%
All gray
23%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I C K
S H R U B
S H R U G

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SHRUG in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

SHRUG can come back 90 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

554 answers
371 answers
175 answers
130 answers
100 answers
99 answers
93 answers
62 answers
56 answers
53 answers
49 answers
46 answers
40 answers
34 answers
33 answers
28 answers
24 answers
24 answers
24 answers
22 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1H4R1U1G2
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Try next

ALONE ARIEL PLATE TUILE TOILE COATE

Strategy after playing SHRUG

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SHRUG:

23% chance
Suggested:
ALONE
16% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
7% chance
Suggested:
PLATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

23.3% →
ALONE 6.08 bits
15.6% →
ARIEL 5.16 bits
7.4% →
PLATE 5.51 bits
5.5% →
TUILE 5.13 bits
4.2% →
ALONE 5.49 bits
4.2% →
TOILE 5.16 bits
3.9% →
COATE 5.13 bits
2.6% →
POTAE 4.43 bits
2.4% →
ALINE 4.70 bits
2.2% →
TUBER 4.43 bits

Research on SHRUG

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

Optimal play

Opening with SHRUG, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #7,213 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.86 guesses at best and is rank #3,094 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, 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.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it SHRUHG.

Rhymes with DEBUG

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SHRUG is a kind of motion or gesture.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SHRUG sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 2 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 8, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 72 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.2 of 5).

In a sentence

Tom answered with another shrug.
© tatoeba.org contributor CataG (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).