BILGE
Yes, BILGE was the Wordle answer on June 13, 2025 (Wordle #1455).
As an opener, it rules out about 92.5% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /bɪld͡ʒ/
- Noun
-
The rounded portion of a ship's hull, forming a transition between the bottom and the sides.
- Noun
-
The lowest inner part of a ship's hull, where water accumulates.
- Verb
-
To spring a leak in the bilge.
- Verb
-
To bulge or swell.
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: June 13, 2025 (#1455).
See the full page for that puzzle: June 13, 2025 (#1455).
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 BILGE performs as a guess
BILGE 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 80.8% of games, misses completely in 19.2%, and leaves about 179 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,667 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.65 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 BILGE 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 BILGE 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 BILGE in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
BILGE can come back 108 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 BILGE; 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 BILGE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to BILGE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing BILGE:
Research on BILGE
Game-tree analysis and word research for BILGE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with BILGE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,173 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.81 guesses at best and is rank #1,657 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.65, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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
One syllable Say it BIHLJ. Estimated pronunciation
This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, BILGE is a kind of water or bottom.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- BILGE 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.
In a sentence
He claimed that my submission was utter bilge.
The bilge water needs to be pumped out regularly.
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).