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

ULVAS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of ulva

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

Use ULVAS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 91.0% 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 ULVAS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ULVAS 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 78.9% of games, misses completely in 21.1%, and leaves about 215 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,999 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe ULVAS 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.

4.34 Entropy (bits)
215 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ULVAS 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
99.87% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#7,999 Rank among openers
Opening with ULVAS left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.72 average. It ranks #7,999 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
44
3 guesses
826
4 guesses
1,242
5 guesses
221
6 guesses
18

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ALSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
20%
All gray
21%

Feedback distribution

ULVAS can come back 74 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

503 answers
339 answers
213 answers
176 answers
143 answers
122 answers
80 answers
78 answers
54 answers
54 answers
53 answers
44 answers
43 answers
34 answers
34 answers
32 answers
28 answers
27 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

U1L1V4A1S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing ULVAS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ULVAS:

21% chance
Suggested:
TRONE
14% chance
Suggested:
CARNE
9% chance
Suggested:
STIRE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.1% →
TRONE 6.11 bits
14.2% →
CARNE 5.47 bits
8.9% →
STIRE 5.54 bits
7.4% →
MORNE 4.98 bits
6.0% →
LIBEL 5.00 bits
5.1% →
PEART 4.95 bits
3.4% →
PARTE 4.66 bits
3.3% →
SHUNT 4.37 bits
2.3% →
TRODE 4.58 bits
2.3% →
CRINE 4.46 bits

Research on ULVAS

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

Optimal play

Opening with ULVAS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,549 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 3.78, 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).