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

BULLS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /bʊlz/

Noun

plural of bull

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of bull

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

Etymology

Perhaps a variant of Bull.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it BUULZ.

Rhymes with PULLS WOOLS

Related meanings

Synonyms shit fake bullshit crap cop copper

Opposites bear

In a sentence

They didn't go to the bulls.
© tatoeba.org contributor Igider (CC BY 2.0 FR)
She didn't go to the bulls.
© tatoeba.org contributor Igider (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use BULLS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 83.2% 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.

BULLS in Connections

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

How BULLS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BULLS 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 64.2% of games, misses completely in 35.8%, and leaves about 401 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,125 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.79 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 BULLS 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.

3.73 Entropy (bits)
401 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
83.2% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BULLS 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.

3.79 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#11,125 Rank among openers
Opening with BULLS left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.79 average. It ranks #11,125 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
41
3 guesses
772
4 guesses
1,206
5 guesses
311
6 guesses
21

Composition

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
LSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
64%
Green tile
25%
All gray
36%

Feedback distribution

BULLS can come back 74 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

853 answers
358 answers
229 answers
116 answers
90 answers
77 answers
61 answers
53 answers
50 answers
45 answers
44 answers
35 answers
32 answers
31 answers
21 answers
17 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3U1L1L1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing BULLS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BULLS:

36% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
15% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
10% chance
Suggested:
TIARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

35.8% →
TIARE 6.17 bits
15.0% →
TIARE 5.76 bits
9.6% →
TIARE 5.45 bits
4.9% →
TRONE 5.38 bits
3.8% →
MORNE 4.24 bits
3.2% →
IRATE 5.23 bits
2.6% →
SAUNT 4.39 bits
2.2% →
WAITE 4.73 bits
2.1% →
PLANE 4.45 bits
1.9% →
OATER 4.84 bits

Research on BULLS

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

Optimal play

Opening with BULLS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.83 guesses and ranks #11,873 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 BULLS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.79, at or below the proven-optimal 3.83, 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
BULLS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 9 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.6 of 5).

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).