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

BORKS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 90.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /bɔːks//bɔɹks/

Noun

plural of bork (“species of cod icefish”).

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of bork

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 BORKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BORKS 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 76.1% of games, misses completely in 23.9%, and leaves about 238 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,095 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.72 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 BORKS 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.

4.32 Entropy (bits)
238 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 39% of evaluated openers
1.63 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BORKS 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.

3.72 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#8,095 Rank among openers
Opening with BORKS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.72 average. It ranks #8,095 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
53
3 guesses
825
4 guesses
1,215
5 guesses
242
6 guesses
18
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:
ORS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
27%
All gray
24%

Feedback distribution

BORKS can come back 86 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

568 answers
312 answers
269 answers
131 answers
124 answers
102 answers
70 answers
66 answers
64 answers
56 answers
44 answers
40 answers
35 answers
34 answers
33 answers
31 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
22 answers
22 answers
20 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3O1R1K5S1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing BORKS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BORKS:

24% chance
Suggested:
LIANE
13% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
11% chance
Suggested:
STALE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

23.9%
LIANE 6.15 bits
13.1%
ARIEL 5.16 bits
11.3%
STALE 5.76 bits
5.5%
CLADE 4.40 bits
5.2%
ALINE 5.42 bits
4.3%
TRONE 4.23 bits
2.9%
SPATE 4.86 bits
2.8%
CAGEY 4.64 bits
2.7%
ALINE 4.87 bits
2.4%
STOOL 4.17 bits

Research on BORKS

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

Optimal play

Opening with BORKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,136 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.85 guesses at best and is rank #2,806 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.72, 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 BAWRKS. Estimated pronunciation

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

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.