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

BORES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /bɔɹz//bɔːz/

Noun

plural of bore

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of bore

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 BORES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BORES 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 123 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,767 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe BORES 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.

5.13 Entropy (bits)
123 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 89% of evaluated openers
0.82 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BORES 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
100% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#3,767 Rank among openers
Opening with BORES solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.65 average. It ranks #3,767 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
81
3 guesses
902
4 guesses
1,146
5 guesses
211
6 guesses
14
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:
EORS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
35%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

BORES can come back 113 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

323 answers
245 answers
177 answers
121 answers
115 answers
113 answers
105 answers
105 answers
86 answers
77 answers
66 answers
48 answers
45 answers
39 answers
36 answers
32 answers
29 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3O1R1E1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing BORES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BORES:

14% chance
Suggested:
PAINT
10% chance
Suggested:
LIANE
7% chance
Suggested:
SLANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.6%
PAINT 5.73 bits
10.3%
LIANE 5.39 bits
7.5%
SLANT 5.26 bits
5.1%
TRAIN 5.13 bits
4.8%
SLANT 4.96 bits
4.8%
TRACE 4.84 bits
4.4%
ANILE 3.51 bits
4.4%
TODAY 3.93 bits
3.6%
TALON 4.94 bits
3.2%
ACORN 4.07 bits

Research on BORES

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

Optimal play

Opening with BORES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,066 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 BORES 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 BAWRZ.

Rhymes with DOORS CORES PORES FOURS POURS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, BORES is a kind of actor or current.

Synonyms DRILL EAGER GAUGE tire caliber calibre

Opposites interest

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BORES 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.

In a sentence

That job bores me to death.
© tatoeba.org contributor _undertoad (CC BY 2.0 FR)
This job bores me to death.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).