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

SNUGS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 82.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of snug

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of snug

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

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 SNUGS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SNUGS 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 61.8% of games, misses completely in 38.2%, and leaves about 420 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,491 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.80 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 SNUGS 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.

3.67 Entropy (bits)
420 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
82.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 11% of evaluated openers
2.28 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SNUGS 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.

3.80 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#11,491 Rank among openers
Opening with SNUGS left 1 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 3.80 average. It ranks #11,491 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
33
3 guesses
757
4 guesses
1,242
5 guesses
298
6 guesses
23
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
1 vowels
Common:
NSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
62%
Green tile
29%
All gray
38%

Feedback distribution

SNUGS can come back 63 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

908 answers
245 answers
222 answers
134 answers
132 answers
98 answers
67 answers
53 answers
49 answers
40 answers
31 answers
28 answers
26 answers
26 answers
21 answers
21 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
17 answers
17 answers
15 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1N1U1G2S1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing SNUGS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SNUGS:

38% chance
Suggested:
TALER
10% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
9% chance
Suggested:
PLATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

38.2%
TALER 6.12 bits
10.3%
ARIEL 5.36 bits
9.4%
PLATE 5.50 bits
5.6%
MARLE 4.76 bits
5.6%
TRAPE 5.62 bits
4.1%
RAILE 5.26 bits
2.8%
CLOTE 5.07 bits
2.2%
ALONE 4.32 bits
2.1%
WAITE 4.45 bits
1.7%
ARIEL 4.70 bits

Research on SNUGS

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

Optimal play

Opening with SNUGS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.85 guesses and ranks #12,673 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.99 guesses at best and is rank #6,108 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.80, at or below the proven-optimal 3.85, 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 SNUHGZ. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SNUGS is a kind of room.

Synonyms CLOSE cozy cosy comfortable TIGHT protected

Opposites LOOSE uncomfortable unprotected LEAKY

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SNUGS sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with touch (3.8 of 5).

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 relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).