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

BOSKS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 80.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of bosk

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 BOSKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BOSKS 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 60.2% of games, misses completely in 39.8%, and leaves about 471 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,936 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.90 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 BOSKS 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.

3.36 Entropy (bits)
471 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
80.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 5% of evaluated openers
2.58 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BOSKS 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.

3.90 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#13,936 Rank among openers
Opening with BOSKS 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 3.90 average. It ranks #13,936 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
30
3 guesses
630
4 guesses
1,277
5 guesses
387
6 guesses
29
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

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
OS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
60%
Green tile
24%
All gray
40%

Feedback distribution

BOSKS can come back 57 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

946 answers
312 answers
238 answers
197 answers
97 answers
71 answers
70 answers
52 answers
43 answers
41 answers
38 answers
27 answers
23 answers
22 answers
17 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3O1S1K5S1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing BOSKS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BOSKS:

40% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
13% chance
Suggested:
PEART
10% chance
Suggested:
TRONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

39.8%
RAILE 6.20 bits
13.1%
PEART 5.70 bits
10.0%
TRONE 5.18 bits
8.3%
TALER 4.50 bits
4.1%
RAILE 5.29 bits
3.0%
CARLE 5.13 bits
2.9%
PEART 4.15 bits
2.2%
TALER 5.06 bits
1.8%
LEANT 4.11 bits
1.7%
URITE 3.95 bits

Research on BOSKS

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

Optimal play

Opening with BOSKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.88 guesses and ranks #13,520 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.03 guesses at best and is rank #6,582 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.90; proven optimal play reaches 3.88. 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 BAHSKS. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, BOSKS is a kind of wood.

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).