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

SMUGS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of smug

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

Use SMUGS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 78.5% 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 SMUGS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SMUGS 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 56.9% of games, misses completely in 43.1%, and leaves about 513 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,612 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.83 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 SMUGS 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.

3.38 Entropy (bits)
513 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
78.5% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SMUGS 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.

3.83 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#12,612 Rank among openers
Opening with SMUGS left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.83 average. It ranks #12,612 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
32
3 guesses
707
4 guesses
1,269
5 guesses
320
6 guesses
24

Composition

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
SU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
57%
Green tile
27%
All gray
43%

Feedback distribution

SMUGS can come back 60 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

1028 answers
258 answers
152 answers
150 answers
142 answers
141 answers
76 answers
44 answers
33 answers
29 answers
25 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
6 answers
6 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1M3U1G2S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing SMUGS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SMUGS:

43% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
11% chance
Suggested:
PLATE
6% chance
Suggested:
MORAE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

43.1% →
ARIEL 6.07 bits
10.8% →
PLATE 5.32 bits
6.4% →
MORAE 5.51 bits
6.3% →
TRICE 5.04 bits
6.0% →
ARIEL 5.49 bits
5.9% →
TRAPE 5.60 bits
3.2% →
CLOTE 4.99 bits
1.8% →
DAINE 4.59 bits
1.4% →
CARPE 3.44 bits
1.2% →
LEANT 3.58 bits

Research on SMUGS

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

Optimal play

Opening with SMUGS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.88 guesses and ranks #13,539 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 3.83, at or below the proven-optimal 3.88, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.0 of 5).

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).