GUMMY

Meaning

A sheep that is losing or has lost its teeth.

• adjectiveShowing the gums.
• nounA species of shark, Mustelus antarcticus, endemic to southern and south-eastern Australia, the meat of which is sold as flake.

GUMMY as a word-puzzle answer

GUMMY is a 5-letter word with 1 vowel (U) and 4 consonants (G, M, M, Y). It repeats 1 letter, which is a classic trap — guessers who assume five distinct letters get stuck.

There are no rare letters here, so it is a fair, mid-difficulty answer for the daily Classic puzzle.

GUMMY by the numbers

Across the 1,734 curated answers in the Wordocious bank, U appears in 18% of answers (the 12th most common letter), Y appears in 14% of answers (the 14th most common letter), G appears in 12% of answers (the 16th most common letter). 9 other answers share the opening “GU-”, so two green tiles up front still leave real guessing to do.

Difficulty: 4/5 — tricky, because the repeated letter hides one position.

Near misses

One letter away in the answer bank: DUMMY, MUMMY, YUMMY. Each of these turns four tiles green against GUMMY — the classic endgame squeeze where spending a guess on the differing letter beats burning attempts on hope.

Put it to use

Words like GUMMY are exactly what the daily puzzles throw at you. Warm up in Practice, race the clock in the Daily Challenge, or study the best starting words before your next run. New to the multi-board modes? The mode guides cover all nine.