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

URBEX

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.5% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɜɹbeks/

Noun

The exploration of man-made environments, especially urban structures that are abandoned or off-limits; urban exploration.

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

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

Past Wordle answer

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

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

How URBEX performs as a guess

Wordle accepts URBEX 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 76.5% of games, misses completely in 23.5%, and leaves about 250 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,465 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.82 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 URBEX 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.

4.07 Entropy (bits)
250 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.5% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 26% of evaluated openers
1.87 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How URBEX 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.

3.82 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#12,465 Rank among openers
Opening with URBEX left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.82 average. It ranks #12,465 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
44
3 guesses
689
4 guesses
1,280
5 guesses
315
6 guesses
24
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:
ERU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
27%
All gray
24%

Feedback distribution

URBEX can come back 68 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

557 answers
367 answers
197 answers
187 answers
134 answers
117 answers
108 answers
106 answers
68 answers
62 answers
54 answers
49 answers
42 answers
25 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
19 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

U1R1B3E1X8
Total: 14 points

Words With Friends

Total: 16 points

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

Strategy after playing URBEX

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing URBEX:

23% chance
Suggested:
TALON
15% chance
Suggested:
SLANT
8% chance
Suggested:
SONLY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

23.5%
TALON 5.78 bits
15.5%
SLANT 5.72 bits
8.3%
SONLY 4.92 bits
7.9%
COAST 5.23 bits
5.6%
ROAST 3.63 bits
4.9%
TEASE 4.59 bits
4.5%
SLANT 4.34 bits
4.5%
SLANT 4.80 bits
2.9%
COAST 4.40 bits
2.6%
SAULT 4.38 bits

Research on URBEX

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

Optimal play

Opening with URBEX, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.82 guesses and ranks #11,647 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with URBEX can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.82, at or below the proven-optimal 3.82, 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 URBEHKS. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
URBEX sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).