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

WAUKS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 88.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of wauk

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 WAUKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts WAUKS 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 74.1% of games, misses completely in 25.9%, and leaves about 271 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,967 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.78 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 WAUKS 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.

4.03 Entropy (bits)
271 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 24% of evaluated openers
1.92 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How WAUKS 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.

3.78 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#10,967 Rank among openers
Opening with WAUKS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.78 average. It ranks #10,967 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
35
3 guesses
741
4 guesses
1,290
5 guesses
276
6 guesses
12
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:
ASU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
74%
Green tile
26%
All gray
26%

Feedback distribution

WAUKS can come back 65 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

614 answers
342 answers
207 answers
201 answers
174 answers
114 answers
77 answers
52 answers
52 answers
48 answers
46 answers
41 answers
34 answers
30 answers
28 answers
25 answers
23 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

W4A1U1K5S1
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing WAUKS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing WAUKS:

26% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
14% chance
Suggested:
ALERT
9% chance
Suggested:
STIPE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.9%
TOILE 5.92 bits
14.4%
ALERT 5.58 bits
8.7%
STIPE 5.53 bits
8.5%
RONTE 4.82 bits
7.3%
TRICE 4.87 bits
4.8%
STALE 4.91 bits
3.2%
TRONE 4.78 bits
2.2%
STIRE 4.23 bits
2.2%
POLEY 4.06 bits
2.0%
RONTE 4.53 bits

Research on WAUKS

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

Optimal play

Opening with WAUKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.81 guesses and ranks #11,132 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.94 guesses at best and is rank #5,019 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.78, at or below the proven-optimal 3.81, 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 WAWKS. 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.