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

BISOM

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

As an opener, it rules out about 90.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Obsolete form of besom.

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 BISOM performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BISOM 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 76.8% of games, misses completely in 23.2%, and leaves about 229 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,498 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe BISOM 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.

4.32 Entropy (bits)
229 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 40% of evaluated openers
1.63 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BISOM 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#5,498 Rank among openers
Opening with BISOM left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.68 average. It ranks #5,498 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
54
3 guesses
891
4 guesses
1,178
5 guesses
219
6 guesses
11
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.45 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
IOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
77%
Green tile
24%
All gray
23%

Feedback distribution

BISOM can come back 88 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

547 answers
269 answers
253 answers
223 answers
120 answers
90 answers
90 answers
79 answers
74 answers
55 answers
44 answers
36 answers
35 answers
28 answers
26 answers
26 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
18 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BISOM:

23% chance
Suggested:
CARLE
11% chance
Suggested:
TRACE
11% chance
Suggested:
STALE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

23.2%
CARLE 6.19 bits
11.4%
TRACE 5.28 bits
10.7%
STALE 5.60 bits
9.4%
CRANE 5.48 bits
5.1%
PALET 4.56 bits
3.8%
MEALY 5.02 bits
3.8%
STORE 4.65 bits
3.3%
LEANT 4.50 bits
3.1%
CARLE 5.14 bits
2.3%
TALER 4.87 bits

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3I1S1O1M3
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

The science of BISOM

What game-tree analysis and word research measure about BISOM — each figure with what it means.

Optimal play

Opening with BISOM, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses — rank #6,839 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.84 guesses at best — rank #2,502 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68 — at or below the proven-optimal 3.73 only 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) — not the site's working answer pool.

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable — say it BIHSUHM. Estimated pronunciation

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

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.