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

YOUKS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of youk

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of youk

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Use YOUKS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 88.3% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

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

How YOUKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts YOUKS 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 71.7% of games, misses completely in 28.3%, and leaves about 280 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,073 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe YOUKS 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.

4.05 Entropy (bits)
280 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.3% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How YOUKS 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
100% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#11,073 Rank among openers
Opening with YOUKS 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 3.79 average. It ranks #11,073 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
26
3 guesses
752
4 guesses
1,300
5 guesses
253
6 guesses
23

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
OSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
72%
Green tile
21%
All gray
28%

Feedback distribution

YOUKS can come back 62 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

674 answers
257 answers
224 answers
186 answers
129 answers
125 answers
68 answers
65 answers
64 answers
58 answers
48 answers
41 answers
38 answers
38 answers
36 answers
35 answers
34 answers
31 answers
20 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
11 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

Y4O1U1K5S1
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing YOUKS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing YOUKS:

28% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
11% chance
Suggested:
STALE
9% chance
Suggested:
TRINE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

28.3% →
RAILE 6.11 bits
10.8% →
STALE 5.69 bits
9.4% →
TRINE 5.36 bits
7.8% →
TALER 5.08 bits
5.4% →
TRINE 5.01 bits
5.2% →
RANCE 4.83 bits
2.9% →
TROPE 4.19 bits
2.7% →
TRACE 4.82 bits
2.7% →
CARLE 5.14 bits
2.4% →
DROLE 4.00 bits

Research on YOUKS

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

Optimal play

Opening with YOUKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.81 guesses and ranks #11,349 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.96 guesses at best and is rank #5,502 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 3.81, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT).