BELAY
BELAY is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /bɪˈleɪ//ˈbiːleɪ/
- Verb
-
To make (a rope) fast by turning it around a fastening point such as a cleat.
- Verb
-
To handle a climbing rope to prevent (a climber) from falling to the ground.
“He would need an experienced partner to belay him on the difficult climbs.”
- Noun
-
The securing of a rope to a rock or other sturdy object.
- Noun
-
The object to which a rope is secured.
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English beleggen, bileggen, from Old English beleċġan (“to cover, invest, surround, afflict, attribute to, charge with, accuse”), From Proto-West Germanic *bilaggjan, equivalent to be- (“about, around”) + lay. Cognate with Dutch beleggen (“to cover, overlay, belay”), German belegen (“to cover, occupy, belay”), Swedish belägga (“to pave”).
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
Use BELAY in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 93.3% of possible answers.
Wordle status
A word can be a playable guess without being a possible answer.
Playable guess
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
NoThe solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.
Past Wordle answer
No completed appearanceNo 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.
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See what the public sample says →How BELAY performs as a guess
Wordle accepts BELAY 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 85.9% of games, misses completely in 14.1%, and leaves about 160 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,651 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe BELAY 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How BELAY 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Feedback distribution
BELAY can come back 116 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for BELAY; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing BELAY
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to BELAY.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing BELAY:
Research on BELAY
Game-tree analysis and word research for BELAY, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with BELAY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,632 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 BELAY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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
- BELAY 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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).