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

USHER

Yes, USHER was the Wordle answer on December 5, 2021 (Wordle #169).

As an opener, it rules out about 94.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with USHER Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈʌʃəɹ/[ˈʌʃ.ə(ɹ)][ˈʌʃ.ɚ]

Noun

A person, in a church, cinema etc., who escorts people to their seats.

Noun

A male escort at a wedding.

Verb

To guide people to their seats.

Verb

To accompany or escort (someone).

Alternative forms: huisher, husher

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: December 5, 2021 (#169).

See the full page for that puzzle: December 5, 2021 (#169).

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

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How USHER performs as a guess

USHER 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 85.6% of games, misses completely in 14.4%, and leaves about 140 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,444 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.73 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___R U in the 1st position and R in the 5th position U__E_ U in the 1st position and E in the 4th position _S__R S in the 2nd position and R in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe USHER 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.

4.76 Entropy (bits)
140 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
94.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 69% of evaluated openers
1.19 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How USHER 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.

3.73 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#8,444 Rank among openers
Opening with USHER left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.73 average. It ranks #8,444 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
57
3 guesses
823
4 guesses
1,198
5 guesses
246
6 guesses
28
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:
ERSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
18%
All gray
14%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S I L E D
U S H E R

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches USHER in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

USHER can come back 82 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

342 answers
238 answers
185 answers
160 answers
150 answers
119 answers
104 answers
102 answers
93 answers
85 answers
57 answers
56 answers
52 answers
50 answers
46 answers
41 answers
41 answers
36 answers
32 answers
31 answers
28 answers
25 answers
20 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

U1S1H4E1R1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Try next

TALON ALINE TRAIN SAINT IRATE MOULT

Strategy after playing USHER

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing USHER:

14% chance
Suggested:
TALON
10% chance
Suggested:
ALINE
8% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.4% →
TALON 5.88 bits
10.0% →
ALINE 5.46 bits
7.8% →
TRAIN 5.07 bits
6.7% →
SAINT 5.29 bits
6.3% →
IRATE 4.41 bits
5.0% →
MOULT 4.62 bits
4.4% →
SLANT 4.94 bits
4.3% →
TOILE 3.32 bits
3.9% →
ALONE 4.20 bits
3.6% →
PINCH 4.84 bits

Research on USHER

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

Optimal play

Opening with USHER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.74 guesses and ranks #7,634 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 USHER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, at or below the proven-optimal 3.74, 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 UHSHUR.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, USHER is a kind of official or escort.

Synonyms show GUIDE

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
USHER sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 3 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
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: 60 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.1 of 5).

In a sentence

Ready to usher in a new day.
© tatoeba.org contributor kiryopi (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Very soon we will usher in a new year.
© tatoeba.org contributor karloelkebekio (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).