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

THUDS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 88.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of thud

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 THUDS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts THUDS 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 71.2% of games, misses completely in 28.8%, and leaves about 267 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,366 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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 THUDS 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.

4.33 Entropy (bits)
267 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 40% of evaluated openers
1.62 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How THUDS 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.

3.66 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#4,366 Rank among openers
Opening with THUDS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.67 means those games clustered within about 0.67 of a guess of the 3.66 average. It ranks #4,366 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
53
3 guesses
904
4 guesses
1,198
5 guesses
188
6 guesses
10
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:
STU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
71%
Green tile
22%
All gray
29%

Feedback distribution

THUDS can come back 88 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

683 answers
222 answers
172 answers
171 answers
126 answers
115 answers
75 answers
73 answers
56 answers
42 answers
41 answers
40 answers
40 answers
39 answers
31 answers
29 answers
28 answers
24 answers
21 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1H4U1D2S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing THUDS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing THUDS:

29% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
9% chance
Suggested:
PAIRE
7% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

28.8%
ARIEL 6.10 bits
9.4%
PAIRE 5.60 bits
7.2%
ARIEL 5.75 bits
7.2%
ARIEL 5.59 bits
5.3%
RAILE 4.97 bits
4.8%
MARLE 4.85 bits
3.2%
CARLE 5.17 bits
3.1%
NOIRE 5.02 bits
2.4%
COATE 4.21 bits
1.8%
CARLE 4.20 bits

Research on THUDS

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

Optimal play

Opening with THUDS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #6,770 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with THUDS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.73, 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 THUHDZ. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, THUDS is a kind of sound or go.

Synonyms thumping

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
THUDS 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 sound (4.7 of 5).

In a sentence

The thuds were coming from the other side of the room.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Sami heard bumps and thuds.
© tatoeba.org contributor OsoHombre (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).