BLUSH
Yes, BLUSH was the Wordle answer on June 24, 2021 (Wordle #5).
As an opener, it rules out about 88.8% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈblʌʃ/[ˈblʌʃ]
- Noun
-
An act of blushing; a pink or red glow on the face caused by embarrassment, shame, shyness, love, etc.
- Noun
-
A glow; a flush of colour, especially pink or red.
- Verb
-
To become red or pink in the face (and sometimes experience an associated feeling of warmth), especially due to shyness, love, shame, excitement, or embarrassment.
“The love scene made him blush to the roots of his hair / to the tips of his ears.”
- Verb
-
To be shy, ashamed, or embarrassed (to do something).
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 24, 2021 (#5).
See the full page for that puzzle: June 24, 2021 (#5).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
Wordle Observatory · optional
Played this Wordle?
Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds
Wordle Observatory · optional
Played this Wordle?
Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds
Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.
See the public dataThank you. Your result now helps describe this puzzle.
See what the public sample says →How BLUSH performs as a guess
BLUSH 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 71.4% of games, misses completely in 28.6%, and leaves about 266 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,291 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe BLUSH 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 BLUSH 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 BLUSH in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
BLUSH can come back 93 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 BLUSH; 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 BLUSH
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to BLUSH.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing BLUSH:
Research on BLUSH
Game-tree analysis and word research for BLUSH, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with BLUSH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,472 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 #2,551 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, BLUSH is a kind of status or makeup.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- BLUSH sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 4 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Learner level
- Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B1); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.1 of 5).
In a sentence
I blush when I see you.
You're going to make me blush.
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; Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).