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

BOXES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 90.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈbɑksɪz//ˈbɒksɪz/

Noun

plural of box

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of box

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 BOXES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BOXES 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 79.9% of games, misses completely in 20.1%, and leaves about 228 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,721 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.83 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 BOXES 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.

4.12 Entropy (bits)
228 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 28% of evaluated openers
1.83 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BOXES 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.

3.83 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#12,721 Rank among openers
Opening with BOXES left 2 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 3.83 average. It ranks #12,721 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
48
3 guesses
674
4 guesses
1,268
5 guesses
348
6 guesses
14
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
2 vowels
Common:
EOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
31%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

BOXES can come back 67 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

476 answers
374 answers
230 answers
172 answers
170 answers
146 answers
142 answers
64 answers
63 answers
50 answers
46 answers
46 answers
46 answers
27 answers
26 answers
23 answers
21 answers
20 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3O1X8E1S1
Total: 14 points

Words With Friends

Total: 15 points

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

Strategy after playing BOXES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BOXES:

20% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL
16% chance
Suggested:
REATE
10% chance
Suggested:
SLART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.1%
TRAIL 5.87 bits
15.8%
REATE 5.50 bits
9.7%
SLART 5.22 bits
7.2%
LATER 4.38 bits
7.2%
ADORN 5.08 bits
6.1%
SLART 4.95 bits
6.0%
CLARY 4.57 bits
2.7%
DRONE 4.30 bits
2.7%
SPORT 3.91 bits
2.1%
STEER 4.00 bits

Research on BOXES

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

Optimal play

Opening with BOXES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,779 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 BOXES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.83; proven optimal play reaches 3.80. 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

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

Rhymes with FOXES

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, BOXES is a kind of container or compartment.

Synonyms corner package

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BOXES sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 22 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.4 of 5).

In a sentence

Put the boxes over there.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
How many boxes are there?
© tatoeba.org contributor mailohilohi (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).