linux L₁I₁N₁U₁X₈

LINUX names any Unix-like operating system built on the Linux kernel. That makes it a modern coinage inside a lexicon list, and its frequency rank of 7,133 with a count of 225 shows how seldom it appears. Even so, it is listed, which matters if your game uses the Collins list.

LINUX at a glance

• Five letters: L, I, N, U, X.
• Base score is 12, and the X supplies 8 of those points.
• Only Collins lists it; NWL2023 and ENABLE do not.
• Wordle accepts it as a guess, but it is not an answer.

Can you play LINUX in Scrabble?

Only where Collins is the list. In North American games that run on NWL2023, the play is rejected and you lose the turn. The word has no anagrams to fall back on.

If your game does not name its list, play something safer than a technology word.

The 12-point total is respectable for five letters, mostly because of the X, so the play is worth knowing about for a Collins event.

In a casual game on a phone, the safe assumption is that the app uses a North American list, which does not include LINUX.

Why is LINUX a useful Wordle guess?

As an allowed guess, LINUX tests L, I, N, U and X at once. X is among the least common letters, so a guess that includes it is a quick way to rule one rare tile out. The vowels I and U also get tested.

It never counts as the solution, so use it only to learn, not to win.

How rare is an X ending?

Just 67 of 12,789 five-letter words end in X, about 1 percent, against 568 that start with L, about 4 percent. LINUM, one letter away, is the only neighbour, and it scores 7. No other word shares its ending in the lexicon.