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

BLECH

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /blɛk//blɛx/

Interjection

An imitation of the sound of gagging, used to express disgust or disdain.

“Blech! Look at all those maggots!”

Verb

To have the vomiting reflex triggered.

Noun

A metal sheet used to cover stovetop burners on Shabbat to allow food to be kept warm without violating the prohibition against cooking.

Alternative forms: bleck

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

From Yiddish בלעך (blekh). Related to German Blech.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it BLEHK.

Rhymes with CHECK WRECK SPECK FLECK

Use BLECH in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 90.8% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

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

How BLECH performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BLECH 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 79.1% of games, misses completely in 20.9%, and leaves about 219 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,210 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.67 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 BLECH 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.

4.51 Entropy (bits)
219 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.8% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BLECH 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.

3.67 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#5,210 Rank among openers
Opening with BLECH solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.67 average. It ranks #5,210 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
49
3 guesses
895
4 guesses
1,202
5 guesses
192
6 guesses
16

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
EL

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
28%
All gray
21%

Feedback distribution

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

498 answers
422 answers
176 answers
128 answers
100 answers
81 answers
80 answers
60 answers
56 answers
55 answers
51 answers
44 answers
40 answers
37 answers
34 answers
31 answers
30 answers
29 answers
28 answers
24 answers
23 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3L1E1C3H4
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 14 points

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

Strategy after playing BLECH

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BLECH:

21% chance
Suggested:
SAINT
18% chance
Suggested:
STAIR
7% chance
Suggested:
ATOLL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.9% →
SAINT 6.15 bits
17.7% →
STAIR 5.47 bits
7.4% →
ATOLL 5.00 bits
5.4% →
REATE 4.72 bits
4.2% →
SONAR 5.29 bits
3.4% →
STARY 4.74 bits
3.4% →
SAINT 5.09 bits
2.5% →
SONAR 4.26 bits
2.3% →
CARTE 4.81 bits
2.3% →
TARSE 4.96 bits

Research on BLECH

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

Optimal play

Opening with BLECH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,195 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 #2,663 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BLECH 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).