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

BRIMS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /bɹɪmz/

Noun

plural of brim

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of brim

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

Related meanings

Synonyms lip rim

Use BRIMS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 91.5% 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 BRIMS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BRIMS 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 79.6% of games, misses completely in 20.4%, and leaves about 202 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,855 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.65 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 BRIMS 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.

4.46 Entropy (bits)
202 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.5% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BRIMS 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.

3.65 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#3,855 Rank among openers
Opening with BRIMS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.67 means those games clustered within about 0.67 of a guess of the 3.65 average. It ranks #3,855 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
60
3 guesses
896
4 guesses
1,212
5 guesses
175
6 guesses
10

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
IRS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
29%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

BRIMS can come back 89 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

487 answers
277 answers
265 answers
172 answers
129 answers
99 answers
97 answers
81 answers
73 answers
67 answers
58 answers
41 answers
40 answers
37 answers
33 answers
29 answers
29 answers
25 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3R1I1M3S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing BRIMS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BRIMS:

20% chance
Suggested:
ALONE
12% chance
Suggested:
STALE
11% chance
Suggested:
TERRA

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.4% →
ALONE 6.05 bits
11.6% →
STALE 5.69 bits
11.1% →
TERRA 5.30 bits
7.2% →
TILDE 5.08 bits
5.4% →
CADET 5.06 bits
4.2% →
CLONE 4.89 bits
4.1% →
POTAE 5.06 bits
3.4% →
ALONE 5.04 bits
3.1% →
ALONE 5.07 bits
2.8% →
RIDER 4.46 bits

Research on BRIMS

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

Optimal play

Opening with BRIMS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,748 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.81 guesses at best and is rank #1,752 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.65, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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
BRIMS 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.3 of 5).

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).