5 FiveLetterWords
Accepted guess Not a possible answer B tier for first-turn info

BOLES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.5% of possible answers.

Open Solver with BOLES Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of bole

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 BOLES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BOLES 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 86.4% of games, misses completely in 13.6%, and leaves about 131 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,008 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.65 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

B___S B in the 1st position and S in the 5th position B__E_ B in the 1st position and E in the 4th position _O__S O in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position BO_ES B in the 1st position, O in the 2nd position, E in the 4th position, and S in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in BOLES.

First-turn measures

All four describe BOLES 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.

5.01 Entropy (bits)
131 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.5% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 84% of evaluated openers
0.94 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BOLES 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.

3.65 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#4,008 Rank among openers
Opening with BOLES left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.65 average. It ranks #4,008 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
75
3 guesses
893
4 guesses
1,168
5 guesses
206
6 guesses
11
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.46 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ELOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
34%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

BOLES can come back 107 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

322 answers
261 answers
172 answers
133 answers
129 answers
127 answers
118 answers
107 answers
100 answers
55 answers
51 answers
49 answers
42 answers
42 answers
37 answers
35 answers
31 answers
30 answers
25 answers
25 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3O1L1E1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

TRAIN TIARE SHART RAINY IRATE APRON

Strategy after playing BOLES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BOLES:

14% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
11% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
7% chance
Suggested:
SHART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.6% →
TRAIN 5.93 bits
11.0% →
TIARE 5.52 bits
7.2% →
SHART 5.31 bits
5.6% →
RAINY 4.88 bits
5.4% →
IRATE 4.11 bits
5.3% →
APRON 5.08 bits
5.0% →
STAIR 4.81 bits
4.5% →
REATE 4.86 bits
4.2% →
RAINY 4.08 bits
2.3% →
DRONE 4.50 bits

Research on BOLES

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

Optimal play

Opening with BOLES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,424 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with BOLES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.65; proven optimal play reaches 3.64. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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 BOHLZ.

Rhymes with GOALS ROLES HOLES ROLLS SOULS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, BOLES is a kind of chad or soil.

Synonyms TRUNK

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BOLES 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).