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

BRAYS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /bɹeɪz/

Noun

plural of bray

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of bray

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

Related meanings

Synonyms GRIND crunch mash

In a sentence

The donkey brays all the time.
© tatoeba.org contributor sundown (CC BY 2.0 FR)
That donkey brays the whole time.
© tatoeba.org contributor sundown (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use BRAYS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 93.4% 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.

BRAYS in Connections

1 recorded appearance in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.

How BRAYS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BRAYS 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 83.5% of games, misses completely in 16.5%, and leaves about 157 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,343 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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 BRAYS 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.

4.70 Entropy (bits)
157 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BRAYS 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.

3.69 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#6,343 Rank among openers
Opening with BRAYS left 3 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 3.69 average. It ranks #6,343 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
50
3 guesses
869
4 guesses
1,200
5 guesses
221
6 guesses
11

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ARS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
28%
All gray
16%

Feedback distribution

BRAYS can come back 83 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

394 answers
232 answers
209 answers
192 answers
140 answers
117 answers
102 answers
80 answers
79 answers
78 answers
54 answers
54 answers
53 answers
52 answers
47 answers
46 answers
28 answers
27 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3R1A1Y4S1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing BRAYS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BRAYS:

17% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
10% chance
Suggested:
CLINE
9% chance
Suggested:
TOILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.5% →
TOILE 6.21 bits
9.7% →
CLINE 5.36 bits
8.8% →
TOILE 5.39 bits
8.1% →
ROUET 5.03 bits
5.9% →
MOILE 4.57 bits
4.9% →
CONTE 4.83 bits
4.3% →
CATER 4.66 bits
3.4% →
SUITE 4.60 bits
3.3% →
STILE 4.38 bits
3.3% →
CLINE 4.94 bits

Research on BRAYS

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

Optimal play

Opening with BRAYS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #6,636 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.86 guesses at best and is rank #3,149 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.73, 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
BRAYS sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).