Accepted guess Not a possible answer B tier for first-turn info

BARNS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of barn

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of barn

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 BARNS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BARNS 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 85.3% of games, misses completely in 14.7%, and leaves about 135 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #994 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.60 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe BARNS 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.

4.97 Entropy (bits)
135 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 82% of evaluated openers
0.98 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BARNS 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.

3.60 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#994 Rank among openers
Opening with BARNS left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.67 means those games clustered within about 0.67 of a guess of the 3.60 average. It ranks #994 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
58
3 guesses
1,006
4 guesses
1,120
5 guesses
157
6 guesses
11
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.46 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ANRS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
85%
Green tile
32%
All gray
15%

Feedback distribution

BARNS can come back 100 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

348 answers
238 answers
196 answers
163 answers
136 answers
115 answers
94 answers
89 answers
58 answers
57 answers
52 answers
50 answers
43 answers
43 answers
37 answers
36 answers
35 answers
32 answers
31 answers
31 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
23 answers
20 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3A1R1N1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing BARNS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BARNS:

15% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
10% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
8% chance
Suggested:
TOILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.7%
TOILE 6.09 bits
10.0%
TOILE 5.15 bits
8.3%
TOILE 5.52 bits
6.9%
CLOTE 5.45 bits
5.7%
TOILE 5.15 bits
4.8%
TRACE 5.00 bits
4.0%
THALE 4.84 bits
3.7%
COLEY 4.36 bits
2.4%
COLEY 4.39 bits
2.4%
SPITE 4.66 bits

Research on BARNS

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

Optimal play

Opening with BARNS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.65 guesses and ranks #1,583 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with BARNS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, at or below the proven-optimal 3.65, 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.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it BAHRNZ.

Rhymes with YARNS KARNS CARNS DARNS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, BARNS is a kind of building or unit.

Synonyms b

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BARNS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.6 of 5).

In a sentence

What do you know about building barns?
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
The barns are full of grain.
© tatoeba.org contributor sharptoothed (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).