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

BONGS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 88.7% of possible answers.

Open Solver with BONGS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of bong

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of bong

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 BONGS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BONGS 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 72.5% of games, misses completely in 27.5%, and leaves about 268 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,492 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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__G_ B in the 1st position and G in the 4th position _O__S O in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe BONGS 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.

4.24 Entropy (bits)
268 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 35% of evaluated openers
1.70 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BONGS 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.

3.69 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#6,492 Rank among openers
Opening with BONGS left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.69 average. It ranks #6,492 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
47
3 guesses
872
4 guesses
1,198
5 guesses
224
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
1 vowels
Common:
NOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
72%
Green tile
26%
All gray
28%

Feedback distribution

BONGS can come back 81 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

653 answers
329 answers
152 answers
150 answers
130 answers
86 answers
73 answers
71 answers
67 answers
60 answers
50 answers
50 answers
39 answers
38 answers
28 answers
24 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3O1N1G2S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Try next

RAILE STALE CRATE ARIEL MARLE GLARE

Strategy after playing BONGS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BONGS:

28% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
14% chance
Suggested:
STALE
6% chance
Suggested:
CRATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

27.5% →
RAILE 6.20 bits
13.9% →
STALE 5.71 bits
6.4% →
CRATE 5.25 bits
6.3% →
ARIEL 5.49 bits
5.5% →
MARLE 4.81 bits
3.6% →
GLARE 5.14 bits
3.1% →
CADIE 4.64 bits
3.0% →
CARLE 5.11 bits
2.8% →
REACT 4.19 bits
2.5% →
LIANE 4.48 bits

Research on BONGS

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

Optimal play

Opening with BONGS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,108 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.83 guesses at best and is rank #2,333 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, 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.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it BAHNGZ. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, BONGS is a kind of sound or ring.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BONGS 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.2 of 5).

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).