5 FiveLetterWords
Accepted guess Not a possible answer F tier for first-turn info

BASKS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 83.0% of possible answers.

Open Solver with BASKS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /bɑːsks//bæsks/

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of bask

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 BASKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BASKS 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 65.1% of games, misses completely in 34.9%, and leaves about 403 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,955 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.84 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___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

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

First-turn measures

All four describe BASKS 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.

3.53 Entropy (bits)
403 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
83.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 7% of evaluated openers
2.42 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BASKS 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.

3.84 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#12,955 Rank among openers
Opening with BASKS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.84 average. It ranks #12,955 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
29
3 guesses
674
4 guesses
1,312
5 guesses
318
6 guesses
20
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

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
AS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
65%
Green tile
25%
All gray
35%

Feedback distribution

BASKS can come back 58 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

829 answers
348 answers
268 answers
204 answers
121 answers
92 answers
51 answers
42 answers
34 answers
32 answers
31 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
8 answers
8 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3A1S1K5S1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Try next

RIONE ALERT PORTE RONTE STALE TOILE

Strategy after playing BASKS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BASKS:

35% chance
Suggested:
RIONE
15% chance
Suggested:
ALERT
11% chance
Suggested:
PORTE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

34.9% →
RIONE 5.95 bits
14.7% →
ALERT 5.62 bits
11.3% →
PORTE 5.45 bits
8.6% →
RONTE 4.76 bits
5.1% →
STALE 4.83 bits
3.9% →
TOILE 5.12 bits
2.1% →
CLINE 4.77 bits
1.8% →
LOURE 4.80 bits
1.4% →
SLYER 3.83 bits
1.3% →
CRINE 3.61 bits

Research on BASKS

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

Optimal play

Opening with BASKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.87 guesses and ranks #13,250 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.02 guesses at best and is rank #6,514 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.84, at or below the proven-optimal 3.87, 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 BASKS.

Rhymes with TASKS MASKS CASKS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, BASKS is a kind of feel or lie.

Synonyms ENJOY relish

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BASKS sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with touch (2.4 of 5).

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).