SCULL

Meaning

A single oar mounted at the stern of a boat and moved from side to side to propel the boat forward.

• verbTo row a boat using a scull or sculls.

SCULL as a word-puzzle answer

SCULL is a 5-letter word with 1 vowel (U) and 4 consonants (S, C, L, L). It repeats 1 letter, which is a classic trap — guessers who assume five distinct letters get stuck.

It leans on high-frequency letters (S), so a strong vowel-and-common-consonant opener tends to light up quickly. There are no rare letters here, so it is a fair, mid-difficulty answer for the daily Classic puzzle.

SCULL by the numbers

Across the 1,734 curated answers in the Wordocious bank, S appears in 28% of answers (the 7th most common letter), L appears in 26% of answers (the 8th most common letter), C appears in 19% of answers (the 10th most common letter). 17 other answers share the opening “SC-”, so two green tiles up front still leave real guessing to do.

Difficulty: 2/5 — approachable, because the repeated letter hides one position.

Near misses

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

Put it to use

Words like SCULL 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.