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

UNSUB

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈʌnsʌb/

Noun

Abbreviation of unknown subject of an investigation..

Verb

Abbreviation of unsubscribe.

Noun

Abbreviation of unsubscription.

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

Use UNSUB in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 81.2% 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 UNSUB performs as a guess

Wordle accepts UNSUB 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 62.5% of games, misses completely in 37.5%, and leaves about 447 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,472 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.87 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.

Useful pattern pages

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

First-turn measures

All four describe UNSUB 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.

3.33 Entropy (bits)
447 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
81.2% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How UNSUB 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.

3.87 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#13,472 Rank among openers
Opening with UNSUB solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.87 average. It ranks #13,472 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
38
3 guesses
631
4 guesses
1,314
5 guesses
349
6 guesses
22

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
NSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
62%
Green tile
11%
All gray
38%

Feedback distribution

UNSUB can come back 55 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

893 answers
348 answers
285 answers
162 answers
144 answers
63 answers
56 answers
54 answers
45 answers
44 answers
34 answers
34 answers
33 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers
5 answers
4 answers
4 answers
4 answers
3 answers
3 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

U1N1S1U1B3
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing UNSUB

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing UNSUB:

37% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
15% chance
Suggested:
STALE
12% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

37.5% →
ROATE 6.09 bits
14.6% →
STALE 5.67 bits
12.0% →
ARIEL 5.42 bits
6.8% →
DROLE 4.89 bits
6.0% →
BLARE 5.53 bits
2.6% →
WAITE 4.46 bits
2.3% →
SAULT 4.35 bits
2.3% →
CRUET 3.81 bits
1.9% →
ARIEL 4.82 bits
1.8% →
POTAE 4.43 bits

Research on UNSUB

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

Optimal play

Opening with UNSUB, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.90 guesses and ranks #13,790 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.02 guesses at best and is rank #6,464 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.87, at or below the proven-optimal 3.90, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
UNSUB 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).