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

SPULE

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A shoulder.

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

Etymology

Either: * A variant of spauld, spaul (“shoulder”). * Unrelated to spauld, and of obscure origin.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use SPULE in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 93.8% 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 SPULE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SPULE 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 83.1% of games, misses completely in 16.9%, and leaves about 147 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,224 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 SPULE 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.

5.08 Entropy (bits)
147 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.8% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SPULE 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.

3.62 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#2,224 Rank among openers
Opening with SPULE left 2 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 3.62 average. It ranks #2,224 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
89
3 guesses
926
4 guesses
1,138
5 guesses
179
6 guesses
20

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ELSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
39%
All gray
17%

Feedback distribution

SPULE can come back 119 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

404 answers
295 answers
143 answers
139 answers
110 answers
94 answers
90 answers
69 answers
66 answers
49 answers
46 answers
41 answers
40 answers
38 answers
37 answers
32 answers
32 answers
27 answers
27 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
22 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1P3U1L1E1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing SPULE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SPULE:

17% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
12% chance
Suggested:
TENOR
6% chance
Suggested:
TONAL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.9% →
TRAIN 6.03 bits
12.4% →
TENOR 5.14 bits
6.0% →
TONAL 5.03 bits
5.8% →
GRACE 4.41 bits
4.6% →
RENAL 4.48 bits
3.9% →
RAINY 4.67 bits
3.8% →
BURNT 4.50 bits
2.9% →
ROAST 4.83 bits
2.8% →
POINT 4.86 bits
2.1% →
IDYLL 4.17 bits

Research on SPULE

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

Optimal play

Opening with SPULE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.65 guesses and ranks #1,614 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.78 guesses at best and is rank #884 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.65, 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).