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

BOSEY

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A googly.

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

Named after English cricketer Bernard Bosanquet who toured Australia for the 1903/4 summer; + -y. (Reference: Sidney J. Baker, The Australian Language, second edition, 1966, chapter XI section 4, page 248.)

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use BOSEY in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 93.5% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

How BOSEY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BOSEY 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 155 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,067 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.74 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 BOSEY 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.

4.73 Entropy (bits)
155 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.5% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BOSEY 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.

3.74 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#9,067 Rank among openers
Opening with BOSEY left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.74 average. It ranks #9,067 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
62
3 guesses
789
4 guesses
1,218
5 guesses
263
6 guesses
21

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
42%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

BOSEY can come back 95 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

330 answers
325 answers
175 answers
168 answers
158 answers
140 answers
136 answers
96 answers
64 answers
57 answers
48 answers
43 answers
42 answers
41 answers
40 answers
38 answers
30 answers
26 answers
25 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3O1S1E1Y4
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing BOSEY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BOSEY:

14% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
14% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL
7% chance
Suggested:
SLANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.8% →
TIARE 5.38 bits
13.6% →
TRAIL 6.07 bits
7.3% →
SLANT 5.21 bits
7.0% →
RAILE 4.28 bits
6.6% →
ACTOR 5.00 bits
5.9% →
DAIRY 4.12 bits
5.7% →
SLART 4.85 bits
4.0% →
CARNE 4.18 bits
2.7% →
DRONE 4.37 bits
2.4% →
SPORT 4.00 bits

Research on BOSEY

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

Optimal play

Opening with BOSEY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #5,134 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 BOSEY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.74; proven optimal play reaches 3.70. 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT).