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

BURIN

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈbjʊəɹɪn//ˈbɝ.ɪn/

Noun

A chisel with a sharp point, used for engraving; a graver.

Noun

A prehistoric flint tool

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

Etymology

Likely derived from Basque buru (“head”), referring here to a headland or promontory.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use BURIN in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 91.9% 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 BURIN performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BURIN 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 79.0% of games, misses completely in 21.0%, and leaves about 193 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,799 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.63 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 BURIN 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.

4.66 Entropy (bits)
193 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.9% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BURIN 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.

3.63 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#2,799 Rank among openers
Opening with BURIN left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.63 average. It ranks #2,799 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
63
3 guesses
960
4 guesses
1,121
5 guesses
189
6 guesses
18

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
INRU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
30%
All gray
21%

Feedback distribution

BURIN can come back 104 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

501 answers
305 answers
186 answers
134 answers
103 answers
100 answers
91 answers
90 answers
69 answers
60 answers
55 answers
52 answers
49 answers
48 answers
42 answers
28 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3U1R1I1N1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing BURIN

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BURIN:

21% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
13% chance
Suggested:
COATE
8% chance
Suggested:
STILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.0% →
SLATE 6.47 bits
12.8% →
COATE 5.28 bits
7.8% →
STILE 5.31 bits
5.6% →
OLATE 5.06 bits
4.3% →
SPITE 4.45 bits
4.2% →
CLOSE 5.20 bits
3.8% →
CASTE 5.03 bits
3.8% →
STAGE 4.42 bits
2.9% →
SADLY 4.15 bits
2.5% →
PALET 4.76 bits

Research on BURIN

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

Optimal play

Opening with BURIN, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,995 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.83 guesses at best and is rank #2,148 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.63, 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
BURIN sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).