5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess C tier for first-turn info

BOXER

Yes, BOXER was the Wordle answer on December 13, 2024 (Wordle #1273).

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈbɒksə//ˈbɑksɚ/

Noun

A participant in a boxing match; a fighter who boxes.

“You can tell she's a boxer by looking at her nose.”

Noun

A type of internal combustion engine in which cylinders are arranged in two banks on either side of a single crankshaft.

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

Etymology

Named Boxers by the West, since their official title was "The Fist of Righteous Harmony" (義和拳 /义和拳 (Yìhéquán)) and their symbol was a clenched fist.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it BAHKSUR.

Related meanings

Synonyms packer

In a sentence

You're not a good boxer.
© tatoeba.org contributor Miktsoanit (CC BY 2.0 FR)
You don't look like a boxer.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use BOXER in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 90.8% of possible answers.

Open Solver with BOXER Open Word Finder

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: December 13, 2024 (#1273).

See the full page for that puzzle: December 13, 2024 (#1273).

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

Wordle Observatory · optional

Played this Wordle?

Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds

Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.

See the public data

The Observatory retains the selected puzzle, result, rating, optional Hard Mode answer and a random one-puzzle receipt. It stores no answer word, grid, guesses, account, email, IP-derived ID or reusable player identifier.

How verification and withdrawal work

The answer word and timezone are used transiently to verify this page, then discarded. The receipt prevents duplicate submissions and lets this browser withdraw later; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. Read the full privacy details.

BOXER in Connections

6 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . Showing the 5 most recent. A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.

How BOXER performs as a guess

BOXER is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 78.8% of games, misses completely in 21.2%, and leaves about 219 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,660 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.78 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

B___R B in the 1st position and R in the 5th position B__E_ B in the 1st position and E in the 4th position _O__R O in the 2nd position and R in the 5th position BO_ER B in the 1st position, O in the 2nd position, E in the 4th position, and R in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in BOXER.

First-turn measures

All four describe BOXER 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)
219 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
90.8% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BOXER 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.

3.78 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#10,660 Rank among openers
Opening with BOXER 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 3.78 average. It ranks #10,660 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
44
3 guesses
765
4 guesses
1,234
5 guesses
290
6 guesses
19

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EOR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
32%
All gray
21%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S M O C K
F L O W N
B O X E R

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches BOXER in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

BOXER can come back 75 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

506 answers
358 answers
202 answers
158 answers
137 answers
125 answers
101 answers
84 answers
77 answers
59 answers
40 answers
39 answers
39 answers
35 answers
29 answers
27 answers
26 answers
24 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3O1X8E1R1
Total: 14 points

Words With Friends

Total: 15 points

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

Try next

SAINT SLANT TEASE SALTY ARSON SLANE

Strategy after playing BOXER

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BOXER:

21% chance
Suggested:
SAINT
15% chance
Suggested:
SLANT
8% chance
Suggested:
SAINT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.2% →
SAINT 6.00 bits
15.0% →
SLANT 5.69 bits
8.5% →
SAINT 5.25 bits
6.6% →
TEASE 4.76 bits
5.7% →
SLANT 5.26 bits
5.2% →
SALTY 4.50 bits
4.2% →
SAINT 3.81 bits
3.5% →
SLANT 4.91 bits
3.2% →
ARSON 3.99 bits
2.5% →
SLANE 4.24 bits

Research on BOXER

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

Optimal play

Opening with BOXER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,465 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 BOXER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.78, at or below the proven-optimal 3.77, 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
BOXER sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 5 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 8, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 92 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.7 of 5).

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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).