BRIBE
Yes, BRIBE was the Wordle answer on August 22, 2021 (Wordle #64).
As an opener, it rules out about 91.7% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /bɹaɪb/
- Noun
-
Something (usually money) given in exchange for influence or as an inducement to breaking the law.
- Noun
-
The act of offering or paying such a payment: an act of bribery.
- Verb
-
To give a bribe to; specifically, to ask a person to do something against their original will, in exchange for some type of reward or relief from potential trouble.
“She was accused of trying to bribe the jury into making false statements.”
- Verb
-
To gain by a bribe; to induce as by a bribe.
“to bribe somebody's compliance”
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: August 22, 2021 (#64).
See the full page for that puzzle: August 22, 2021 (#64).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How BRIBE performs as a guess
BRIBE is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 79.5% of games, misses completely in 20.5%, and leaves about 198 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,874 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.76 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe BRIBE 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How BRIBE 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches BRIBE in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
BRIBE can come back 78 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for BRIBE; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing BRIBE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to BRIBE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing BRIBE:
Research on BRIBE
Game-tree analysis and word research for BRIBE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with BRIBE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,546 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 BRIBE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.76, at or below the proven-optimal 3.80, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, BRIBE is a kind of payment or pay.
Synonyms buy corrupt payoff
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- BRIBE sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 3 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 10, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 42 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
In a sentence
This is not a bribe.
Don't try to bribe me.
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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0).