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

BUHLS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 87.9% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of buhl

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 BUHLS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BUHLS 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 71.4% of games, misses completely in 28.6%, and leaves about 286 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,071 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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 BUHLS 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.

4.13 Entropy (bits)
286 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 29% of evaluated openers
1.82 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BUHLS 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.

3.70 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#7,071 Rank among openers
Opening with BUHLS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.70 average. It ranks #7,071 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
48
3 guesses
863
4 guesses
1,196
5 guesses
233
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
1 vowels
Common:
LSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
71%
Green tile
22%
All gray
29%

Feedback distribution

BUHLS can come back 81 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

678 answers
282 answers
262 answers
168 answers
94 answers
76 answers
72 answers
71 answers
66 answers
56 answers
51 answers
40 answers
37 answers
35 answers
29 answers
26 answers
23 answers
21 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3U1H4L1S1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing BUHLS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BUHLS:

29% chance
Suggested:
RAINE
12% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
11% chance
Suggested:
TIARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

28.6%
RAINE 6.11 bits
11.9%
TIARE 5.83 bits
11.0%
TIARE 5.37 bits
7.1%
CARTE 5.81 bits
4.0%
TRONE 5.30 bits
3.2%
TARGE 4.37 bits
3.0%
DAINE 4.75 bits
3.0%
TARSE 4.69 bits
2.8%
RAINE 5.06 bits
2.4%
POAKE 4.60 bits

Research on BUHLS

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

Optimal play

Opening with BUHLS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,180 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 #3,199 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it BUULZ. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, BUHLS is a kind of decoration.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0).