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

BESOM

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with BESOM Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈbiː.zəm//ˈbɛ.zəm/

Noun

A broom made from a bundle of twigs tied onto a shaft.

Noun

A troublesome woman.

Verb

To sweep.

Alternative forms: beesom

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 BESOM performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BESOM 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 83.1% of games, misses completely in 16.9%, and leaves about 187 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,729 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.72 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__O_ B in the 1st position and O 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 BESOM.

First-turn measures

All four describe BESOM 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.

4.53 Entropy (bits)
187 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 54% of evaluated openers
1.42 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BESOM 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.

3.72 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#7,729 Rank among openers
Opening with BESOM solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.72 average. It ranks #7,729 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
60
3 guesses
797
4 guesses
1,259
5 guesses
228
6 guesses
10
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:
EOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
25%
All gray
17%

Feedback distribution

BESOM can come back 89 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

402 answers
365 answers
207 answers
185 answers
139 answers
130 answers
103 answers
69 answers
67 answers
56 answers
44 answers
42 answers
37 answers
36 answers
35 answers
28 answers
26 answers
25 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
17 answers
16 answers
14 answers
13 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3E1S1O1M3
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Try next

TRAIL RAILE CRONY SLANT PARTE REATE

Strategy after playing BESOM

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BESOM:

17% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL
15% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
9% chance
Suggested:
CRONY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.9% →
TRAIL 5.95 bits
15.4% →
RAILE 5.38 bits
8.7% →
CRONY 4.89 bits
7.8% →
SLANT 5.29 bits
5.9% →
PARTE 4.82 bits
5.5% →
REATE 4.51 bits
4.3% →
RONTE 4.46 bits
2.9% →
LAIRY 4.52 bits
2.8% →
SHORT 4.48 bits
2.4% →
TALER 4.47 bits

Research on BESOM

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

Optimal play

Opening with BESOM, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #6,725 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.84 guesses at best and is rank #2,619 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.72, 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.

How it sounds

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

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, BESOM is a kind of broom.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BESOM sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

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).