5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess F tier for first-turn info

BOOBY

Yes, BOOBY was the Wordle answer on August 12, 2021 (Wordle #54).

As an opener, it rules out about 71.8% of possible answers.

Open Solver with BOOBY Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈbuːbi/

Noun

A stupid person.

Noun

Any of various large tropical seabirds from the genera Sula and Papasula in the family Sulidae, traditionally considered to be stupid.

Verb

To install a booby trap on or at (something); to attack (someone) with a booby trap.

Adjective

Displaying breasts prominently.

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

Used once

Past Wordle answer: August 12, 2021 (#54).

See the full page for that puzzle: August 12, 2021 (#54).

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

Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.

See the public data

The Observatory retains the selected puzzle, result, rating, optional Hard Mode answer and a random one-puzzle receipt. It stores no answer word, grid, guesses, account, email, IP-derived ID or reusable player identifier.

How verification and withdrawal work

The answer word and timezone are used transiently to verify this page, then discarded. The receipt prevents duplicate submissions and lets this browser withdraw later; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. Read the full privacy details.

How BOOBY performs as a guess

BOOBY 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 49.6% of games, misses completely in 50.4%, and leaves about 670 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #14,720 of 14,855 openers, averaging 4.02 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___Y B in the 1st position and Y in the 5th position B__B_ B in the 1st position and B in the 4th position _O__Y O in the 2nd position and Y in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe BOOBY 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.

2.89 Entropy (bits)
670 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
71.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 1% of evaluated openers
3.05 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BOOBY 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.

4.02 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.77 Spread of game lengths
#14,720 Rank among openers
Opening with BOOBY left 4 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.77 means those games clustered within about 0.77 of a guess of the 4.02 average. It ranks #14,720 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
33
3 guesses
526
4 guesses
1,197
5 guesses
543
6 guesses
50
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

3/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
O

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
50%
Green tile
39%
All gray
50%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S C O L D
B O O Z Y
B O O B Y

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches BOOBY in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

BOOBY can come back 53 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

1197 answers
259 answers
167 answers
157 answers
137 answers
102 answers
48 answers
48 answers
37 answers
29 answers
20 answers
15 answers
13 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
4 answers
4 answers
4 answers
3 answers
3 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3O1O1B3Y4
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Try next

RAISE CRUET CRATE LATER LEANT SLADE

Strategy after playing BOOBY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BOOBY:

50% chance
Suggested:
RAISE
11% chance
Suggested:
RAISE
7% chance
Suggested:
CRUET

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

50.4% →
RAISE 6.12 bits
10.9% →
RAISE 4.70 bits
7.0% →
CRUET 4.93 bits
6.6% →
CRATE 4.91 bits
5.8% →
LATER 5.25 bits
4.3% →
LEANT 5.22 bits
2.0% →
SLADE 3.63 bits
2.0% →
CATER 4.92 bits
1.6% →
PARLE 4.59 bits
1.2% →
SALEP 3.47 bits

Research on BOOBY

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

Optimal play

Opening with BOOBY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 4.00 guesses and ranks #14,690 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.19 guesses at best and is rank #7,378 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 4.02; proven optimal play reaches 4.00. 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

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

Rhymes with LOOBY

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, BOOBY is a kind of simple.

Synonyms dope DUMMY boob

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BOOBY sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 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 (3.7 of 5).

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).