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

VUGGS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 74.5% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of vugg

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 VUGGS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts VUGGS 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 54.2% of games, misses completely in 45.8%, and leaves about 605 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #14,432 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.95 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe VUGGS 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.

2.96 Entropy (bits)
605 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
74.5% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 1% of evaluated openers
2.98 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How VUGGS 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.

3.95 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#14,432 Rank among openers
Opening with VUGGS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.95 average. It ranks #14,432 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
28
3 guesses
589
4 guesses
1,248
5 guesses
460
6 guesses
29
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
1 vowels
Common:
SU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
54%
Green tile
16%
All gray
46%

Feedback distribution

VUGGS can come back 50 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

1087 answers
436 answers
150 answers
115 answers
102 answers
81 answers
72 answers
46 answers
42 answers
32 answers
25 answers
21 answers
16 answers
15 answers
13 answers
12 answers
10 answers
10 answers
7 answers
7 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
4 answers
4 answers
4 answers
3 answers
3 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

V4U1G2G2S1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 14 points

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

Strategy after playing VUGGS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing VUGGS:

46% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
18% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
6% chance
Suggested:
TRONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

45.8%
ARIEL 6.00 bits
18.4%
TIARE 5.60 bits
6.3%
TRONE 5.42 bits
4.8%
CARLE 4.33 bits
4.3%
ALONE 5.33 bits
3.4%
LAREE 5.31 bits
3.0%
SLART 4.12 bits
1.9%
DAINE 4.59 bits
1.8%
TONER 4.52 bits
1.3%
SKATE 3.49 bits

Research on VUGGS

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

Optimal play

Opening with VUGGS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.97 guesses and ranks #14,573 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.11 guesses at best and is rank #7,183 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.95, at or below the proven-optimal 3.97, 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

One syllable Say it VUHGZ. Estimated pronunciation

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

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.