5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess F tier for first-turn info

BELLY

Yes, BELLY was the Wordle answer on August 16, 2021 (Wordle #58).

As an opener, it rules out about 86.8% of possible answers.

Open Solver with BELLY Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈbɛli/

Noun

The abdomen (especially a fat one).

“You've grown a belly over Christmas! Time to join the gym again.”

Noun

stomach (an organ in animals that stores food in the process of digestion)

“My belly was full of wine.”

Verb

To position one’s belly; to move on one’s belly.

Verb

To swell and become protuberant; to bulge or billow.

Alternative forms: bellie

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: August 16, 2021 (#58).

See the full page for that puzzle: August 16, 2021 (#58).

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

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How BELLY performs as a guess

BELLY is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 75.0% of games, misses completely in 25.0%, and leaves about 313 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,309 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.82 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___Y B in the 1st position and Y in the 5th position B__L_ B in the 1st position and L in the 4th position _E__Y E in the 2nd position and Y in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe BELLY 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.

3.95 Entropy (bits)
313 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
86.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 20% of evaluated openers
2.00 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BELLY 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.

3.82 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.74 Spread of game lengths
#12,309 Rank among openers
Opening with BELLY left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.74 means those games clustered within about 0.74 of a guess of the 3.82 average. It ranks #12,309 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
50
3 guesses
710
4 guesses
1,235
5 guesses
324
6 guesses
32
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:
EL

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
75%
Green tile
36%
All gray
25%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S I L E N
B E L C H
B E L L Y

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches BELLY in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

BELLY can come back 84 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

594 answers
530 answers
201 answers
169 answers
118 answers
115 answers
49 answers
35 answers
32 answers
32 answers
31 answers
29 answers
28 answers
26 answers
25 answers
25 answers
23 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3E1L1L1Y4
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Try next

TRAIN STAIR SAUNT COAST AINEE RANSE

Strategy after playing BELLY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BELLY:

25% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
22% chance
Suggested:
STAIR
8% chance
Suggested:
SAUNT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.0% →
TRAIN 6.15 bits
22.3% →
STAIR 5.50 bits
8.5% →
SAUNT 4.75 bits
7.1% →
COAST 5.02 bits
5.0% →
AINEE 4.55 bits
4.8% →
RANSE 4.74 bits
2.1% →
SONAR 4.70 bits
1.5% →
COBRA 4.59 bits
1.3% →
SAINT 4.18 bits
1.3% →
TRADE 3.91 bits

Research on BELLY

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

Optimal play

Opening with BELLY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.83 guesses and ranks #11,930 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 BELLY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.82, at or below the proven-optimal 3.83, 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 BEHLEE.

Rhymes with KELLY JELLY TELLY NELLY BELLI

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, BELLY is a kind of part or fat.

Synonyms stomach abdomen

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BELLY sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 13 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A2); among the first words English learners study.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 4, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 84 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.1 of 5).

In a sentence

I hit him in the belly.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
You have a huge belly.
© tatoeba.org contributor Eccles17 (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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).