5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess C tier for first-turn info

URBAN

Yes, URBAN was the Wordle answer on March 2, 2024 (Wordle #987).

As an opener, it rules out about 93.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with URBAN Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɜː.bən//ˈɝ.bən//øˈː.bən/

Adjective

Of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or happening or located in, a city or town; of, pertaining to, or characteristic of life in such a place, especially when contrasted with the countryside.

“urban life”

Adjective

Living in a city or town.

Alternative forms: urbane

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: March 2, 2024 (#987).

See the full page for that puzzle: March 2, 2024 (#987).

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

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How URBAN performs as a guess

URBAN is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 83.2% of games, misses completely in 16.8%, and leaves about 163 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,568 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

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

U___N U in the 1st position and N in the 5th position U__A_ U in the 1st position and A in the 4th position _R__N R in the 2nd position and N in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in URBAN.

First-turn measures

All four describe URBAN 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.

4.73 Entropy (bits)
163 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
93.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 67% of evaluated openers
1.21 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How URBAN 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#5,568 Rank among openers
Opening with URBAN left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.68 average. It ranks #5,568 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
55
3 guesses
906
4 guesses
1,145
5 guesses
229
6 guesses
17
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
2 vowels
Common:
ANRU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
25%
All gray
17%

Example solver route

R O A T E
C A R R Y
A U G U R
U R B A N

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches URBAN in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

URBAN can come back 97 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

400 answers
283 answers
203 answers
155 answers
139 answers
139 answers
96 answers
87 answers
62 answers
60 answers
51 answers
49 answers
45 answers
39 answers
37 answers
35 answers
34 answers
33 answers
26 answers
24 answers
24 answers
17 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

U1R1B3A1N1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Try next

TOILE SLATE SOREE SOCLE TOISE TARRE

Strategy after playing URBAN

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing URBAN:

17% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
12% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
9% chance
Suggested:
SOREE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.8% →
TOILE 6.10 bits
11.9% →
SLATE 5.66 bits
8.6% →
SOREE 4.97 bits
6.5% →
SOCLE 5.15 bits
5.9% →
TOISE 5.34 bits
5.9% →
TARRE 4.53 bits
4.0% →
SPICE 4.79 bits
3.7% →
STILE 4.43 bits
2.6% →
SURER 4.73 bits
2.5% →
CLOTE 4.54 bits

Research on URBAN

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

Optimal play

Opening with URBAN, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #5,116 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.82 guesses at best and is rank #1,866 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it URBUHN.

Related meanings

Opposites RURAL

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
URBAN sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 45 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 10, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 57 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.7 of 5).

In a sentence

We live in an urban area.
© tatoeba.org contributor CM (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Urban air makes you free.
© tatoeba.org contributor Ooneykcall (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).