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

BOCCE

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

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈbɑt͡ʃi/

Noun

A game, similar to bowls or pétanque, played on a long, narrow, dirt-covered court, or informally, as a lawn game.

Noun

One of the eight balls that the player throws in a game of bocce.

Alternative forms: boccie, bocci

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 BOCCE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BOCCE 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 76.5% of games, misses completely in 23.5%, and leaves about 258 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,854 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 BOCCE 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.

4.15 Entropy (bits)
258 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 30% of evaluated openers
1.79 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BOCCE 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
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#10,854 Rank among openers
Opening with BOCCE solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.78 average. It ranks #10,854 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
38
3 guesses
773
4 guesses
1,232
5 guesses
290
6 guesses
21
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
2 vowels
Common:
EO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
40%
All gray
24%

Feedback distribution

BOCCE can come back 75 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

557 answers
403 answers
233 answers
193 answers
133 answers
87 answers
54 answers
53 answers
50 answers
44 answers
39 answers
37 answers
36 answers
35 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3O1C3C3E1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 14 points

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

Strategy after playing BOCCE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BOCCE:

23% chance
Suggested:
SAINT
17% chance
Suggested:
STAIR
10% chance
Suggested:
SLART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

23.5%
SAINT 6.11 bits
17.0%
STAIR 5.30 bits
9.8%
SLART 5.23 bits
8.1%
ARSON 5.17 bits
5.6%
SALTY 4.56 bits
3.7%
SLART 4.98 bits
2.3%
SLANT 4.60 bits
2.2%
SHALT 4.37 bits
2.1%
SLART 3.88 bits
1.9%
MOWER 3.19 bits

Research on BOCCE

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

Optimal play

Opening with BOCCE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.79 guesses and ranks #10,356 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.97 guesses at best and is rank #5,659 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 3.79, 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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it BOHCHEE.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, BOCCE is a kind of bowling.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BOCCE 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 relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).