5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess C tier for first-turn info

SULKY

Yes, SULKY was the Wordle answer on May 2, 2023 (Wordle #682).

As an opener, it rules out about 88.0% of possible answers.

Open Solver with SULKY Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈsʌlki/

Adjective

silent and withdrawn after being upset

“the sulky child”

Noun

A light, two-wheeled, horse-drawn cart used in harness racing.

Noun

Any carriage seating only the driver.

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: May 2, 2023 (#682).

See the full page for that puzzle: May 2, 2023 (#682).

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

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How SULKY performs as a guess

SULKY is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 70.4% of games, misses completely in 29.6%, and leaves about 285 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,821 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.72 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

S___Y S in the 1st position and Y in the 5th position S__K_ S in the 1st position and K in the 4th position _U__Y U in the 2nd position and Y in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in SULKY.

First-turn measures

All four describe SULKY 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.

4.20 Entropy (bits)
285 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
88.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 32% of evaluated openers
1.75 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SULKY 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.

3.72 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#7,821 Rank among openers
Opening with SULKY 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 3.72 average. It ranks #7,821 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
46
3 guesses
856
4 guesses
1,185
5 guesses
244
6 guesses
21
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

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
LSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
70%
Green tile
38%
All gray
30%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I M Y
S H Y L Y
S U L K Y

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SULKY in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

SULKY can come back 82 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

703 answers
269 answers
163 answers
162 answers
124 answers
120 answers
69 answers
57 answers
54 answers
49 answers
47 answers
37 answers
35 answers
31 answers
30 answers
29 answers
27 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
15 answers
13 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1U1L1K5Y4
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Try next

TIARE TRODE PARTE ROATE TRONE RONTE

Strategy after playing SULKY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SULKY:

30% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
11% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
7% chance
Suggested:
TRODE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

29.6% →
TIARE 6.25 bits
11.3% →
TIARE 5.44 bits
6.9% →
TRODE 4.87 bits
6.8% →
PARTE 5.41 bits
5.2% →
ROATE 5.48 bits
5.1% →
TRONE 5.46 bits
2.9% →
RONTE 4.71 bits
2.4% →
CATER 4.92 bits
2.3% →
THALE 4.62 bits
2.1% →
CARTE 4.56 bits

Research on SULKY

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

Optimal play

Opening with SULKY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,387 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.90 guesses at best and is rank #4,123 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.72, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it SUHLKEE. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SULKY is a kind of vehicle.

Synonyms gloomy sluggish dark slow

Opposites LIGHT fast

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SULKY sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 7, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 54 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.7 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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).