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

BOTHY

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈbɒθi//ˈbɑθi//ˈbʌhi/

Noun

A small cottage or hut; specifically (Scotland), one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.

Noun

A building for workers to rest in.

Alternative forms: boothie, boothy, bothie

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

Etymology

Probably from booth + -y (diminutive suffix). Booth is ultimately derived from Proto-Germanic *bōþō (“building; dwelling; hut”), from *būaną (“to dwell, reside”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH- (“to be”). The short vowel /ɒ/, /ɑ/, etc., in the first syllable instead of the long vowel /uː/ in booth may be due to the influence of Irish both and Scottish Gaelic both (“booth, hut”), which have the same etymology as booth.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use BOTHY in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 88.6% 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 BOTHY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BOTHY 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 72.1% of games, misses completely in 27.9%, and leaves about 271 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,465 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.71 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 BOTHY 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.

4.23 Entropy (bits)
271 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.6% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BOTHY 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.

3.71 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#7,465 Rank among openers
Opening with BOTHY left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.71 average. It ranks #7,465 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
54
3 guesses
845
4 guesses
1,195
5 guesses
245
6 guesses
14

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
OT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
72%
Green tile
35%
All gray
28%

Feedback distribution

BOTHY can come back 87 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

666 answers
269 answers
202 answers
177 answers
138 answers
110 answers
71 answers
62 answers
58 answers
46 answers
40 answers
39 answers
39 answers
35 answers
28 answers
23 answers
22 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
11 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3O1T1H4Y4
Total: 13 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing BOTHY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BOTHY:

28% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
11% chance
Suggested:
SNARE
8% chance
Suggested:
CRANE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

27.9% →
RAILE 6.20 bits
11.3% →
SNARE 5.70 bits
8.5% →
CRANE 5.36 bits
7.4% →
RAILE 4.85 bits
5.8% →
SAICE 5.47 bits
4.6% →
CARLE 4.74 bits
3.0% →
RAINE 5.12 bits
2.6% →
SENOR 4.35 bits
2.4% →
TIARE 4.88 bits
1.9% →
DROLE 3.79 bits

Research on BOTHY

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

Optimal play

Opening with BOTHY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.74 guesses and ranks #7,562 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 BOTHY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.71, at or below the proven-optimal 3.74, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BOTHY 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).