5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess C tier for first-turn info

BALSA

Yes, BALSA was the Wordle answer on June 9, 2023 (Wordle #720).

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈbɔːl.sə//ˈbæl.sə//ˈbɑlsə/

Noun

A large tree, Ochroma pyramidale, native to tropical America, with wood that is very light in weight.

Noun

The wood of this tree.

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

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it BAWLSUH.

Rhymes with SALSA

In a sentence

You can make a glider out of balsa wood.
© tatoeba.org contributor mccarras (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use BALSA in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 88.9% of possible answers.

Open Solver with BALSA Open Word Finder

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: June 9, 2023 (#720).

See the full page for that puzzle: June 9, 2023 (#720).

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

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How BALSA performs as a guess

BALSA is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 72.4% of games, misses completely in 27.6%, and leaves about 264 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,595 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.73 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

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

B___A B in the 1st position and A in the 5th position B__S_ B in the 1st position and S in the 4th position _A__A A in the 2nd position and A in the 5th position BA_SA B in the 1st position, A in the 2nd position, S in the 4th position, and A in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in BALSA.

First-turn measures

All four describe BALSA used as an opening guess. Entropy is the same idea as “avg ruled out” on a log scale: a higher number means the guess splits the possible answers into more, smaller groups.

4.22 Entropy (bits)
264 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
88.9% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BALSA 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.

3.73 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#8,595 Rank among openers
Opening with BALSA solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.73 average. It ranks #8,595 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
42
3 guesses
807
4 guesses
1,258
5 guesses
229
6 guesses
17

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ALS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
72%
Green tile
31%
All gray
28%

Example solver route

R O A T E
N A S A L
B A L S A

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches BALSA in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

BALSA can come back 80 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

659 answers
228 answers
195 answers
185 answers
152 answers
125 answers
90 answers
83 answers
62 answers
53 answers
47 answers
32 answers
31 answers
29 answers
29 answers
25 answers
25 answers
22 answers
20 answers
16 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3A1L1S1A1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

TRONE RUOTE NOIRE CRINE TRICE TRACE

Strategy after playing BALSA

What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to BALSA.

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BALSA:

28% chance
Suggested:
TRONE
10% chance
Suggested:
RUOTE
8% chance
Suggested:
NOIRE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

27.6% →
TRONE 6.10 bits
9.6% →
RUOTE 5.24 bits
8.2% →
NOIRE 4.97 bits
7.8% →
CRINE 5.54 bits
6.4% →
TRICE 4.88 bits
5.2% →
TRACE 4.53 bits
3.8% →
PEART 4.66 bits
3.5% →
RUOTE 5.08 bits
2.6% →
TRONE 5.05 bits
2.2% →
TUILE 4.19 bits

Research on BALSA

Game-tree analysis and word research for BALSA, with an explanation for each figure.

Optimal play

Opening with BALSA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.76 guesses and ranks #8,764 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.89 guesses at best and is rank #3,857 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, at or below the proven-optimal 3.76, because the two figures score different answer lists.

These figures come from exhaustive game-tree search and are exact for the NYT lists of July 2023 (3,158 answers). They do not use the site's working answer pool.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BALSA sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).