Possible answer Not used yet C tier for first-turn info

BLESS

BLESS is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.

As an opener, it rules out about 89.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /blɛs/

Verb

To make something holy by religious rite, sanctify.

Verb

To invoke divine favor upon.

“In some countries, priests bless farm animals on St. Anthony's Day.”

Interjection

Used as an expression of endearment, gratitude, or (ironically) belittlement.

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

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 BLESS performs as a guess

BLESS 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 76.9% of games, misses completely in 23.1%, and leaves about 257 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,810 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.78 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 BLESS 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.

4.13 Entropy (bits)
257 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
89.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 29% of evaluated openers
1.81 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BLESS 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.

3.78 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#10,810 Rank among openers
Opening with BLESS 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 3.78 average. It ranks #10,810 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
42
3 guesses
736
4 guesses
1,288
5 guesses
271
6 guesses
16
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

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ELS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
77%
Green tile
27%
All gray
23%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S I L E N
B L E S S

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches BLESS in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

BLESS can come back 72 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

549 answers
430 answers
186 answers
177 answers
132 answers
108 answers
76 answers
71 answers
50 answers
47 answers
46 answers
42 answers
40 answers
39 answers
35 answers
35 answers
29 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3L1E1S1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing BLESS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BLESS:

23% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
18% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
8% chance
Suggested:
STAIN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

23.1%
TRAIN 6.01 bits
18.1%
ROATE 5.29 bits
7.8%
STAIN 4.95 bits
7.5%
LOYAL 5.03 bits
5.6%
REATE 4.73 bits
4.5%
PARTE 4.74 bits
3.2%
TRADE 4.72 bits
3.0%
FLANK 4.20 bits
2.1%
ROANY 4.54 bits
2.0%
STALL 4.32 bits

Research on BLESS

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

Optimal play

Opening with BLESS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.82 guesses and ranks #11,513 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.95 guesses at best and is rank #5,344 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.78, at or below the proven-optimal 3.82, 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 BLEHS.

Rhymes with GUESS PRESS DRESS CHESS CRESS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, BLESS is a kind of raise or confer.

Synonyms sign

Opposites CURSE

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BLESS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 15 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B1); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 7, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 27 of 100. Raters found it difficult to picture.

In a sentence

God bless all of you.
© tatoeba.org contributor CM (CC BY 2.0 FR)
He will take it and bless it.
© tatoeba.org contributor Kiwi (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).