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

VELUM

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.4% of possible answers.

Open Solver with VELUM Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈviː.ləm//ˈvɛl.əm//ˈveɪ.ləm/

Noun

A thin membrane resembling a veil or curtain.

Noun

An accessory cloud resembling a veil extending over a large distance; normally associated with cumulus and cumulonimbus.

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 VELUM performs as a guess

Wordle accepts VELUM 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 76.9% of games, misses completely in 23.1%, and leaves about 251 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,063 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.79 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.

V__U_ V in the 1st position and U in the 4th position _E__M E in the 2nd position and M in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe VELUM 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.

4.17 Entropy (bits)
251 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 31% of evaluated openers
1.78 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How VELUM 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.

3.79 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#11,063 Rank among openers
Opening with VELUM left 3 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 3.79 average. It ranks #11,063 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
54
3 guesses
745
4 guesses
1,228
5 guesses
300
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:
ELU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
77%
Green tile
20%
All gray
23%

Feedback distribution

VELUM can come back 80 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

548 answers
407 answers
192 answers
157 answers
143 answers
126 answers
89 answers
78 answers
54 answers
53 answers
49 answers
43 answers
37 answers
35 answers
30 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

V4E1L1U1M3
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 14 points

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

Try next

TRAIN STAIR COAST SAUNT SAREE TRADE

Strategy after playing VELUM

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing VELUM:

23% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
17% chance
Suggested:
STAIR
8% chance
Suggested:
COAST

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

23.1% →
TRAIN 6.12 bits
17.1% →
STAIR 5.48 bits
8.1% →
COAST 5.20 bits
6.6% →
SAUNT 4.98 bits
6.0% →
SAREE 4.56 bits
5.3% →
TRADE 4.70 bits
3.7% →
MICRO 4.81 bits
3.3% →
STURE 4.54 bits
2.3% →
SAINT 4.00 bits
2.2% →
RAINE 4.57 bits

Research on VELUM

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

Optimal play

Opening with VELUM, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.79 guesses and ranks #10,374 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.90 guesses at best and is rank #4,068 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.79, at or below the proven-optimal 3.79, 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 VEHLUHM. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, VELUM is a kind of whole or flap.

Synonyms veil

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
VELUM 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 relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).