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

UNLAW

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Absence of law; lawlessness.

Verb

To deprive of the authority or character of law.

Verb

To put beyond the protection of the law; to outlaw.

Noun

A crime, an illegal action.

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

Etymology

From Middle English unlawe, unlaȝ, unlage, from Old English unlagu (“violation of law, illegality, injustice, lawlessness”), equivalent to un- (“lack or absence of”) + law.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use UNLAW 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 UNLAW performs as a guess

Wordle accepts UNLAW 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 79.4% of games, misses completely in 20.6%, and leaves about 214 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,891 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 UNLAW 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.

4.31 Entropy (bits)
214 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How UNLAW 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
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#7,891 Rank among openers
Opening with UNLAW left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.72 average. It ranks #7,891 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
42
3 guesses
830
4 guesses
1,240
5 guesses
230
6 guesses
11

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ALNU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
16%
All gray
21%

Feedback distribution

UNLAW can come back 76 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

491 answers
346 answers
210 answers
166 answers
161 answers
127 answers
98 answers
62 answers
59 answers
55 answers
54 answers
48 answers
42 answers
39 answers
30 answers
28 answers
28 answers
28 answers
27 answers
25 answers
25 answers
18 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

U1N1L1A1W4
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing UNLAW

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing UNLAW:

21% chance
Suggested:
TORSE
15% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
9% chance
Suggested:
CORSE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.6% →
TORSE 6.18 bits
14.5% →
TARSE 5.64 bits
8.8% →
CORSE 5.42 bits
7.0% →
TOISE 5.41 bits
6.8% →
SLIER 5.11 bits
5.3% →
SLATE 4.65 bits
4.1% →
TRICE 4.63 bits
2.6% →
SLICE 4.19 bits
2.5% →
SHORE 5.05 bits
2.3% →
CEDAR 4.40 bits

Research on UNLAW

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

Optimal play

Opening with UNLAW, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,161 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.87 guesses at best and is rank #3,577 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 3.77, 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).