Among the Wordle answers that players have called out over the years as too obscure or just plain strange, EPOXY comes out on top in Scrabble at 17 points, and ULTRA sits at the very bottom with just 5. Below is the full list, all checked against the real Wordle archive with exact dates, ranked from the highest Scrabble score to the lowest.

All 17 Weird Wordle Words Ranked by Scrabble Score

1. EPOXY, 17 points (Wordle #280, March 26, 2022)
Short for epoxy resin, the plastic used in glue and coatings. Players who don't do much DIY work rarely run into this word, which is part of why it caught so many people off guard.

2. PIQUE, 16 points (Wordle #859, October 26, 2023)
To pique someone means to stir up their curiosity or their irritation. The Q with no U right after it threw a lot of guesses off, since almost nobody tests for Q unless a U shows up first.

3. NYMPH, 15 points (Wordle #281, March 27, 2022)
A mythological nature spirit, usually pictured as a young woman tied to a river or forest. This word has no standard vowel at all. Y does all the work here, which broke the usual habit of testing A, E, I, and O early.

3. JEWEL, 15 points (Wordle #1382, April 1, 2025)
A precious stone or a fine piece of jewelry. Nothing unusual about the meaning, but a W sitting in the middle of a word isn't a common pattern, so a lot of guesses assumed a different letter there and missed.

5. INBOX, 14 points (Wordle #1400, April 19, 2025)
Where your email lands. A completely ordinary word, yet it tripped up more players than almost anything else on this list, probably because INBOX just isn't a word people think to try when they're guessing blind.

6. MYRRH, 13 points (Wordle #1644, December 19, 2025)
A fragrant resin from certain trees, mostly known from the Christmas story. Two Rs stacked next to each other and no standard vowel made this a rough one, especially for anyone without a religious or aromatherapy background to lean on.

7. KEFIR, 12 points (Wordle #1516, August 13, 2025)
A fermented milk drink, similar to drinkable yogurt. Most players simply don't use this word day to day, so even with several letters locked in, plenty of people couldn't land on it in time.

7. EDIFY, 12 points (Wordle #1448, June 6, 2025)
To edify someone means to teach or improve them, usually in a moral or intellectual sense. It's a real word, just a formal one, closer to something you'd hear in a sermon than in daily conversation.

7. EXTOL, 12 points (Wordle #1524, August 21, 2025)
To extol something means to praise it highly. Rare in casual speech, and an X that early in a word isn't a pattern most players expect to see.

10. PIETY, 10 points (Wordle #356, June 10, 2022)
Deep religious devotion. Cramming three vowels, I, E, and Y, into a five letter word made this one slippery, since narrowing down all three at once is harder than it looks on paper.

11. UPPER, 9 points (Wordle #1314, January 23, 2025)
Simple enough by itself, but the double P in the middle surprised players who don't expect repeated letters and had already ruled out similar looking words.

11. KNOLL, 9 points (Wordle #219, January 24, 2022)
A small, rounded hill. The silent K at the start is the real obstacle, since most players never think to guess a word starting with KN unless they already suspect it.

11. KNELL, 9 points (Wordle #1517, August 14, 2025)
The sound of a bell rung slowly, usually for a funeral. Same silent K problem as KNOLL, and just as easy to miss if you've never seen the word written out before.

14. SWILL, 8 points (Wordle #245, February 19, 2022)
To drink something quickly and carelessly, or the slop fed to pigs. Not an obscure word at all, but the double L at the end catches players who found S, W, I, L and stopped considering repeats.

15. REBUS, 7 points (Wordle #196, January 1, 2022)
A puzzle that uses pictures or symbols to represent words or parts of words. Genuinely uncommon in daily conversation, which made it one of the more debated answers early in the game's history.

15. TAPIR, 7 points (Wordle #193, December 29, 2021)
A pig sized mammal with a short trunk, found in Central and South America and parts of Asia. A perfectly real word, just not one most people have ever had a reason to spell.

17. ULTRA, 5 points (Wordle #238, February 12, 2022)
Usually seen attached to another word, as in ultra modern or ultra light. Players pushed back on this one specifically because it barely works as a standalone word in everyday use.

Why the low scorers still felt hard

Scrabble score and Wordle difficulty don't actually move together, and this list makes that pretty clear. ULTRA sits at the very bottom for points, worth almost nothing on a board, yet it was one of the most complained about answers in the game's history. EPOXY, PIQUE, and NYMPH score higher mostly because they contain heavier letters like X, Q, and Y, but their real difficulty came from unusual spelling patterns rather than raw point value. A Scrabble score measures how rare a letter is within that specific game's system. Wordle difficulty is about whether a word fits the shortcuts most players rely on, testing common vowels first, assuming no repeated letters, not expecting a silent consonant. A word can be worth almost nothing in Scrabble and still wreck a six day streak.

If you're stuck on one of these in Scrabble

Words like EPOXY and PIQUE are worth remembering the next time you're holding a rack with an X or a Q and no obvious play in sight. WordsGallery's word finder can confirm whether a five letter word like this is actually valid before you commit your tiles to the board, which beats guessing and losing the turn.

Check a 5 Letter Word