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

BUMPH

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

As an opener, it rules out about 80.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Alternative form of bumf.

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 BUMPH performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BUMPH 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 58.8% of games, misses completely in 41.2%, and leaves about 465 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,811 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.78 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 BUMPH 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.

3.58 Entropy (bits)
465 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
80.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 9% of evaluated openers
2.37 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BUMPH 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.

3.78 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#10,811 Rank among openers
Opening with BUMPH solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.78 average. It ranks #10,811 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
41
3 guesses
749
4 guesses
1,269
5 guesses
279
6 guesses
16
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:
U

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
59%
Green tile
23%
All gray
41%

Feedback distribution

BUMPH can come back 70 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

978 answers
194 answers
172 answers
153 answers
140 answers
118 answers
99 answers
69 answers
52 answers
31 answers
28 answers
26 answers
23 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3U1M3P3H4
Total: 14 points

Words With Friends

Total: 17 points

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

Strategy after playing BUMPH

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BUMPH:

41% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
8% chance
Suggested:
RAISE
7% chance
Suggested:
STARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

41.2%
ARIEL 6.11 bits
8.2%
RAISE 5.72 bits
7.2%
STARE 5.66 bits
6.4%
STONE 5.24 bits
5.9%
RAILE 5.41 bits
5.0%
LIANE 5.27 bits
4.2%
STIRE 4.80 bits
2.9%
COATE 4.77 bits
2.2%
OATER 4.86 bits
1.3%
OATER 4.30 bits

Research on BUMPH

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

Optimal play

Opening with BUMPH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,759 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.91 guesses at best and is rank #4,442 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.78, 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.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it BUHMF. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, BUMPH is a kind of reading.

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).