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

UMBOS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of umbo

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

Use UMBOS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 86.8% 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 UMBOS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts UMBOS 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 69.9% of games, misses completely in 30.1%, and leaves about 315 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,479 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.75 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 UMBOS 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.

3.94 Entropy (bits)
315 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
86.8% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How UMBOS 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.

3.75 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#9,479 Rank among openers
Opening with UMBOS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.75 average. It ranks #9,479 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
42
3 guesses
780
4 guesses
1,269
5 guesses
249
6 guesses
14

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
OSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
70%
Green tile
12%
All gray
30%

Feedback distribution

UMBOS can come back 69 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

718 answers
304 answers
263 answers
159 answers
101 answers
89 answers
86 answers
76 answers
65 answers
53 answers
46 answers
34 answers
33 answers
26 answers
24 answers
24 answers
24 answers
22 answers
16 answers
15 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

U1M3B3O1S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing UMBOS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing UMBOS:

30% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
13% chance
Suggested:
STALE
11% chance
Suggested:
CRANE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

30.1% →
TIARE 6.17 bits
12.8% →
STALE 5.64 bits
11.0% →
CRANE 5.27 bits
6.7% →
CARLE 5.20 bits
4.2% →
RAILE 5.26 bits
3.7% →
STORE 4.57 bits
3.6% →
LEARE 5.08 bits
3.2% →
SHUNT 4.25 bits
2.7% →
TALER 4.86 bits
2.2% →
CRUET 4.45 bits

Research on UMBOS

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

Optimal play

Opening with UMBOS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.79 guesses and ranks #10,189 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.88 guesses at best and is rank #3,829 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.75, at or below the proven-optimal 3.79, 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).