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

USURY

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

As an opener, it rules out about 86.9% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈjuːʒəɹi/

Noun

An exorbitant rate of interest, in excess of any legal rates or at least immorally.

Noun

The practice of lending money at such rates.

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 USURY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts USURY 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 73.4% of games, misses completely in 26.6%, and leaves about 312 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,637 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.88 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 USURY 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.

3.77 Entropy (bits)
312 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
86.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 14% of evaluated openers
2.18 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How USURY 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.

3.88 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.75 Spread of game lengths
#13,637 Rank among openers
Opening with USURY left 4 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.75 means those games clustered within about 0.75 of a guess of the 3.88 average. It ranks #13,637 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
37
3 guesses
676
4 guesses
1,222
5 guesses
372
6 guesses
43
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
RSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
73%
Green tile
29%
All gray
27%

Feedback distribution

USURY can come back 58 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

631 answers
429 answers
295 answers
171 answers
99 answers
86 answers
73 answers
60 answers
54 answers
46 answers
42 answers
41 answers
39 answers
33 answers
32 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
18 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
9 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers
5 answers
4 answers
4 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

U1S1U1R1Y4
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing USURY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing USURY:

27% chance
Suggested:
ALONE
18% chance
Suggested:
NAICE
12% chance
Suggested:
STALE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

26.6%
ALONE 6.15 bits
18.1%
NAICE 5.31 bits
12.4%
STALE 5.70 bits
7.2%
ANOLE 4.74 bits
4.2%
TOILE 4.87 bits
3.6%
STOAE 4.67 bits
3.1%
CLONE 4.46 bits
2.5%
OLATE 4.88 bits
2.3%
SAINT 4.23 bits
1.9%
RUOTE 4.34 bits

Research on USURY

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

Optimal play

Opening with USURY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.89 guesses and ranks #13,628 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.05 guesses at best and is rank #6,759 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.88, at or below the proven-optimal 3.89, 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

Three syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it YOOZHUREE.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, USURY is a kind of rate or lending.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
USURY 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.

In a sentence

Interest rates are deemed by Islam as usury.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Tom has no compunction about engaging in usury.
© tatoeba.org contributor shekitten (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).