BURST
Yes, BURST was the Wordle answer on September 9, 2026 (Wordle #1908).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /bɝst//bɜːst/
- Verb
-
To break from internal pressure.
“I blew the balloon up too much, and it burst.”
- Verb
-
To cause to break from internal pressure.
“I burst the balloon when I blew it up too much.”
- Noun
-
An act or instance of bursting.
“The bursts of the bombs could be heard miles away.”
- Noun
-
A sudden, often intense, expression, manifestation or display.
“I read it in two bursts.”
Alternative forms: brast, brust
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English bresten, bersten, from Old English berstan, from Proto-West Germanic *brestan, from Proto-Germanic *brestaną, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰres- (“to burst, break, crack, split, separate”), enlargement of *bʰreHi- (“to snip, split”).
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it BURST.
Rhymes with FIRST WORST HURST DURST WURST
Related meanings
Synonyms BREAK fit SPLIT explosion collapse bust
In a sentence
He burst into the room.
She burst into the room.
Use BURST in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 92.2% of possible answers.
Wordle status
A word can be a playable guess without being a possible answer.
Playable guess
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: September 9, 2026 (#1908).
See the full page for that puzzle: September 9, 2026 (#1908).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →BURST in Connections
3 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #818
Reveal this appearance's category
BURST appeared in RUPTURED (yellow group).
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· Puzzle #735
Reveal this appearance's category
BURST appeared in WHAT “POP” MIGHT MEAN (purple group).
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· Puzzle #405
Reveal this appearance's category
BURST appeared in WHAT “POP” MIGHT MEAN (purple group).
How BURST performs as a guess
BURST is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 79.1% of games, misses completely in 20.9%, and leaves about 186 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #715 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.59 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe BURST 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How BURST 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches BURST in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
BURST can come back 117 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for BURST; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing BURST
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to BURST.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing BURST:
Research on BURST
Game-tree analysis and word research for BURST, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with BURST, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,169 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.78 guesses at best and is rank #787 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, at or below the proven-optimal 3.66, 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
- BURST sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 14 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Learner level
- Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B1); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 7, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 60 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
- 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); 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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).