5 FiveLetterWords
Accepted guess Not a possible answer C tier opener

BALKS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.8% of possible answers.

Open Solver with BALKS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of balk

Noun

plural of balk

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

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

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

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

How BALKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BALKS 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 74.4% of games, misses completely in 25.6%, and leaves about 241 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete v5 benchmark, it ranks #6,259 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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.

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

B___S B in the 1st position and S in the 5th position B__K_ B in the 1st position and K in the 4th position _A__S A in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position BA_KS B in the 1st position, A in the 2nd position, K in the 4th position, and S in the 5th position

Try next

TRONE ROUET GOIER RONTE ROATE PEART
Words starting with B Words ending with S

First-turn measures

4.34 Entropy (bits)
241 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 41% of evaluated openers
1.61 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opener: v5 benchmark

How BALKS 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.

3.69 Avg guesses
100.0% Win rate
0.67 Volatility
#6,259 v5 opener rank
In the complete v5 snapshot, BALKS ranks #6,259 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
50
3 guesses
852
4 guesses
1,240
5 guesses
202
6 guesses
10
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.45 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ALS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
74%
Green tile
26%
All gray
26%

Feedback distribution

87 possible patterns. Top outcomes:

604
251
204
172
155
126
98
56
51
46
39
35
33
32
30
26
25
21
19
19
18
17
17
15
15
13
12
11
10
9

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BALKS:

26% chance
Suggested:
TRONE
11% chance
Suggested:
ROUET
9% chance
Suggested:
TRONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.6% →
TRONE 6.08 bits
10.6% →
ROUET 5.61 bits
8.7% →
TRONE 5.60 bits
7.3% →
GOIER 5.13 bits
6.6% →
RONTE 4.81 bits
5.3% →
ROATE 4.57 bits
4.2% →
PEART 4.92 bits
2.4% →
TRONE 5.00 bits
2.2% →
SPELL 4.34 bits
2.0% →
TOILE 4.24 bits

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3A1L1K5S1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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