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

SLUES

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of slue

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Related meanings

Synonyms cut TREND SLIDE slip CURVE SHEER

Use SLUES in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 92.0% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

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

How SLUES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SLUES 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 80.1% of games, misses completely in 19.9%, and leaves about 191 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,916 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.78 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 SLUES 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.

4.56 Entropy (bits)
191 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SLUES 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.

3.78 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.75 Spread of game lengths
#10,916 Rank among openers
Opening with SLUES left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.75 means those games clustered within about 0.75 of a guess of the 3.78 average. It ranks #10,916 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
55
3 guesses
770
4 guesses
1,191
5 guesses
303
6 guesses
32

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ELSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
40%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

SLUES can come back 86 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

475 answers
326 answers
174 answers
147 answers
115 answers
109 answers
98 answers
76 answers
69 answers
68 answers
58 answers
53 answers
53 answers
46 answers
41 answers
38 answers
38 answers
30 answers
26 answers
21 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
13 answers
13 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1L1U1E1S1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing SLUES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SLUES:

20% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
14% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
7% chance
Suggested:
OATER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.9% →
TRAIN 6.04 bits
13.7% →
TIARE 5.42 bits
7.3% →
OATER 4.17 bits
6.2% →
LOYAL 5.09 bits
4.8% →
RAINY 4.67 bits
4.6% →
BURNT 4.43 bits
4.1% →
LADLE 4.38 bits
3.2% →
PARTE 4.45 bits
2.9% →
FLANK 4.19 bits
2.9% →
ROAST 4.89 bits

Research on SLUES

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

Optimal play

Opening with SLUES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.79 guesses and ranks #9,994 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with SLUES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.78, at or below the proven-optimal 3.79, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0).