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

BRACH

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /bɹæt͡ʃ//bɹæk/

Noun

Originally, a synonym of scent hound (“a hunting dog that tracks prey using its sense of smell rather than by its vision”); later, any female hound; a bitch hound.

Noun

A despicable or disagreeable woman; a bitch.

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

Etymology

From Late Middle English brache (“hunting dog, especially a small scent hound; female dog, bitch (?); lapdog (?)”), probably a back-formation from Old French brachès, brachez, the plural of brachet (“female scent hound”), a diminutive of brac, from Old High German braccho, bracco, bracko (“scent hound”) (modern German Bracke); further etymology uncertain, possibly from Proto-Germanic *brēkijaną (compare Latin fragrō (“to emit a smell”), Middle High German bræhen (“to smell (something); to use th…

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it BRACH.

Rhymes with MATCH CATCH PATCH BATCH HATCH

Use BRACH in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 91.8% 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 BRACH performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BRACH 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 78.4% of games, misses completely in 21.6%, and leaves about 195 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,891 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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 BRACH 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.

4.69 Entropy (bits)
195 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.8% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BRACH 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#2,891 Rank among openers
Opening with BRACH left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.64 average. It ranks #2,891 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
53
3 guesses
974
4 guesses
1,112
5 guesses
203
6 guesses
10

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
AR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
33%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

BRACH can come back 98 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

515 answers
268 answers
238 answers
116 answers
106 answers
101 answers
87 answers
76 answers
69 answers
51 answers
38 answers
37 answers
35 answers
35 answers
33 answers
32 answers
32 answers
26 answers
23 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3R1A1C3H4
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing BRACH

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BRACH:

22% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
11% chance
Suggested:
SALET
10% chance
Suggested:
SOREE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.6% →
TOILE 6.10 bits
11.2% →
SALET 5.38 bits
10.0% →
SOREE 5.06 bits
4.9% →
TALER 4.70 bits
4.4% →
STIPE 4.67 bits
4.2% →
STILE 5.15 bits
3.6% →
TOISE 5.51 bits
3.2% →
CLONE 5.06 bits
2.9% →
TOILE 4.95 bits
2.1% →
CONTE 4.51 bits

Research on BRACH

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

Optimal play

Opening with BRACH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #4,288 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.82 guesses at best and is rank #1,809 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.69, 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
BRACH 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); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).