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

BEGUM

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

As an opener, it rules out about 86.9% of possible answers.

Open Solver with BEGUM Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /bəˈɡʌm//ˈbeɪɡəm//ˈbɛɡəm/

Verb

To daub or cover with gum.

Noun

a high-ranking Muslim woman, especially in South Asia

Noun

the form of address for such a woman

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 BEGUM performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BEGUM 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 73.4% of games, misses completely in 26.6%, and leaves about 312 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,343 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.77 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___M B in the 1st position and M in the 5th position B__U_ B in the 1st position and U in the 4th position _E__M E in the 2nd position and M in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe BEGUM 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.

4.00 Entropy (bits)
312 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
86.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 23% of evaluated openers
1.95 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BEGUM 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.

3.77 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#10,343 Rank among openers
Opening with BEGUM left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.77 average. It ranks #10,343 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
56
3 guesses
763
4 guesses
1,220
5 guesses
297
6 guesses
17
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
2 vowels
Common:
EU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
73%
Green tile
22%
All gray
27%

Feedback distribution

BEGUM can come back 83 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

632 answers
502 answers
160 answers
148 answers
94 answers
82 answers
75 answers
65 answers
55 answers
54 answers
36 answers
33 answers
33 answers
32 answers
26 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
12 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3E1G2U1M3
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 14 points

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

Try next

TRAIL STAIR SLANT SLART COAST ROANY

Strategy after playing BEGUM

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BEGUM:

27% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL
21% chance
Suggested:
STAIR
7% chance
Suggested:
SLANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

26.6% →
TRAIL 6.00 bits
21.1% →
STAIR 5.43 bits
6.7% →
SLANT 5.07 bits
6.2% →
SLART 4.86 bits
4.0% →
COAST 4.93 bits
3.5% →
ROANY 4.91 bits
3.2% →
STURE 4.62 bits
2.7% →
SONAR 4.76 bits
2.3% →
RAILE 4.63 bits
2.3% →
ARISE 4.55 bits

Research on BEGUM

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

Optimal play

Opening with BEGUM, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.79 guesses and ranks #10,279 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.90 guesses at best and is rank #4,081 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.77, at or below the proven-optimal 3.79, 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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it BEEGUHM. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, BEGUM is a kind of lady.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BEGUM 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), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).