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

BAWNS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of bawn

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

Use BAWNS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 90.0% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

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

How BAWNS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BAWNS 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 75.6% of games, misses completely in 24.4%, and leaves about 238 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,193 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe BAWNS 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.

4.27 Entropy (bits)
238 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BAWNS 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
99.96% Solved within six
0.66 Spread of game lengths
#6,193 Rank among openers
Opening with BAWNS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.66 means those games clustered within about 0.66 of a guess of the 3.69 average. It ranks #6,193 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
46
3 guesses
850
4 guesses
1,255
5 guesses
194
6 guesses
8

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ANS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
28%
All gray
24%

Feedback distribution

BAWNS can come back 77 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

582 answers
270 answers
257 answers
157 answers
148 answers
119 answers
74 answers
66 answers
57 answers
49 answers
43 answers
42 answers
39 answers
36 answers
34 answers
29 answers
27 answers
26 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
19 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3A1W4N1S1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing BAWNS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BAWNS:

24% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
11% chance
Suggested:
ALERT
11% chance
Suggested:
SPITE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

24.4% →
TOILE 6.00 bits
11.3% →
ALERT 5.56 bits
10.8% →
SPITE 5.50 bits
6.6% →
LINER 5.14 bits
6.2% →
PORTE 4.72 bits
5.0% →
REACT 4.77 bits
3.1% →
TOILE 5.08 bits
2.8% →
GOIER 4.58 bits
2.4% →
ALIEN 4.45 bits
2.1% →
TRIDE 5.14 bits

Research on BAWNS

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

Optimal play

Opening with BAWNS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #7,054 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 BAWNS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.73, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT).