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

SLURB

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A homogeneous sprawl of urban and suburban developments.

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

Etymology

Coined by the American artist Robert Smithson (1938–1973).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use SLURB in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 92.4% 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 SLURB performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SLURB 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 82.0% of games, misses completely in 18.0%, and leaves about 182 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,048 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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 SLURB 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.

4.64 Entropy (bits)
182 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SLURB 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#3,048 Rank among openers
Opening with SLURB left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.64 average. It ranks #3,048 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
57
3 guesses
940
4 guesses
1,167
5 guesses
176
6 guesses
13

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
LRSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
32%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

SLURB can come back 91 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

429 answers
357 answers
203 answers
153 answers
91 answers
87 answers
83 answers
67 answers
60 answers
58 answers
54 answers
53 answers
53 answers
43 answers
42 answers
40 answers
35 answers
34 answers
31 answers
29 answers
25 answers
25 answers
23 answers
21 answers
21 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1L1U1R1B3
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing SLURB

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SLURB:

18% chance
Suggested:
CANOE
15% chance
Suggested:
CADET
9% chance
Suggested:
LADLE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.0% →
CANOE 6.03 bits
15.0% →
CADET 5.44 bits
8.5% →
LADLE 5.19 bits
6.4% →
THANE 5.21 bits
3.8% →
THOSE 5.18 bits
3.6% →
CONTE 4.71 bits
3.5% →
ATONE 4.95 bits
2.8% →
COATE 4.69 bits
2.5% →
RIVAL 4.31 bits
2.4% →
BOITE 5.06 bits

Research on SLURB

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

Optimal play

Opening with SLURB, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,675 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.81 guesses at best and is rank #1,534 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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).