BENCH
Yes, BENCH was the Wordle answer on July 6, 2021 (Wordle #17).
As an opener, it rules out about 90.6% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈbɛnt͡ʃ/[ˈbɛnt͡ʃ]/ˈbent͡ʃ/
- Noun
-
A long seat with or without a back, found for example in parks and schools.
“They sat on a park bench and tossed bread crumbs to the ducks and pigeons.”
- Noun
-
The seat where the judges sit in court.
“They are awaiting a decision on the motion from the bench.”
- Verb
-
To remove a player from play.
“They benched him for the rest of the game because they thought he was injured.”
- Verb
-
To remove someone from a position of responsibility temporarily.
Alternative forms: benk, bink
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: July 6, 2021 (#17).
See the full page for that puzzle: July 6, 2021 (#17).
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 BENCH performs as a guess
BENCH 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 78.4% of games, misses completely in 21.6%, and leaves about 222 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,342 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe BENCH 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 BENCH 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
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches BENCH in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
BENCH can come back 86 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 BENCH; 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 BENCH
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to BENCH.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing BENCH:
Research on BENCH
Game-tree analysis and word research for BENCH, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with BENCH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,296 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.85 guesses at best and is rank #2,878 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, BENCH is a kind of seat or plateau.
Synonyms terrace judiciary
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- BENCH sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 25 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 5, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 93 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.9 of 5).
In a sentence
Please go to the bench.
Don't you see my bench?
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).