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

SPUGS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of spug

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

Use SPUGS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 79.0% 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 SPUGS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SPUGS 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 57.3% of games, misses completely in 42.7%, and leaves about 500 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,006 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.84 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 SPUGS 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.

3.44 Entropy (bits)
500 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
79.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SPUGS 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.

3.84 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#13,006 Rank among openers
Opening with SPUGS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.84 average. It ranks #13,006 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
34
3 guesses
692
4 guesses
1,261
5 guesses
341
6 guesses
25

Composition

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
SU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
57%
Green tile
26%
All gray
43%

Feedback distribution

SPUGS can come back 61 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

1019 answers
219 answers
165 answers
159 answers
147 answers
124 answers
74 answers
51 answers
40 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
24 answers
24 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1P3U1G2S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing SPUGS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SPUGS:

43% chance
Suggested:
TALER
9% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
7% chance
Suggested:
PAIRE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

42.7% →
TALER 6.07 bits
9.2% →
TIARE 5.20 bits
6.9% →
PAIRE 5.49 bits
6.7% →
CARET 4.94 bits
6.2% →
ARIEL 5.48 bits
5.2% →
ROATE 5.59 bits
3.1% →
TRONE 4.78 bits
2.1% →
DAINE 4.59 bits
1.7% →
TRINE 4.40 bits
1.2% →
OLATE 4.18 bits

Research on SPUGS

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

Optimal play

Opening with SPUGS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.87 guesses and ranks #13,312 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 #6,054 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.84, at or below the proven-optimal 3.87, 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).